This diary was inspired by arguments from three commentators last week. First, we had Ductape Fatwa’s controversial diary about the inability to reason with Americans. Then there were the comments from BooMan culminating in his diary extolling the virtues of American exceptionalism. And finally, SallyCat’s diary rejecting invective and calling for fact. I would note that SallyCat’s diary appeared to flow naturally from the earlier comments put forward by MilitaryTracy.
I did not agree totally with any of the diarists above. I believe Ductape is right about U.S. foreign policy, but also agree that a significant portion of the American public is in fact reasonable – though I believe we are deliberately misinformed by our media and government. I reject completely the idea that the U.S. is or has any right to be “exceptional.” And to the extent that SallyCat’s diary can be seen as a rebuke to Ductape Fatwa as an example of a writer employing “hateful rhetoric,” I disagree. Though I admired the call for more facts and less rhetoric. Which is why I spent some time this weekend on this project.
I set out to compile a basic outline of some of the troubling aspects of U.S. foreign policy. I just wanted a list of incidents and operations which might show, factually, the kind of country the U.S. has become in the last sixty years. Obviously this list of acts does not represent the good will of many of us who have lived over those decades. But it is our country’s legacy nonetheless.
The resulting list is not wholly coherent. I’ve made it as chronological as I could. It is woefully incomplete. But I think if you weave the threads of fact together, you can begin to see a relatively clear picture. You might quibble with the factual accuracy of any given item. I used Wikipedia as a primary source. So I would defer to those wiser on any given subject. But many of the “facts” below seem to be relatively uncontroversial. And I do not believe you can wash away the entire list as not being “reality based.” The list stands. And it is an incomplete record of our actions since World War II.
I’ve not included every American act. I believe someone trying to defend America as an exceptional example of virtue, or right, or decency, could compile another list. One listing out our good acts. And it would be impressive. But to me, in its totality, this list represents a single conclusion. U.S. foreign policy is very willing to disregard human life and law, so long as the interests of the sitting government are at stake. And if you equate these same actions with a human being, it would be hard not to call this person a murderous bandit willing to kill in his own interest.
When I look at the list, I see a giant battle between corporate-fascists (I’m afraid that is my conclusion of our interests) and leftist movements (the Soviets, Chinese, Cubans). If I extend the list into the future, I see that it might evolve to a battle between corporate-fascists and terrorists. But I imagine the list will look very much the same.
There are also idiosyncracies on the list that do not fit with my own pet theory. There are intelligence programs aimed at surveillance that I included because I found them interesting, and supportive of the notion that we do live in a fascist state to some extent. And there are battles undertaken for humanitarian aims. I would have a hard time second guessing these individual battles if they stood on their own. But in the context of the list of our actions, they are not the rule.
This is what I found in a weekend of very interesting reading.
Operations Overcast and Paperclip
An operation by U.S. military and intelligence agencies in the 1940s and 1950s that illegally brought ineligible Nazi war criminals to the United States to work on the missile and space industry.
Operation Mockingbird
A CIA propaganda operation from the 1940s through the 1970s, employing thousands of journalists and exercising influence over dozens of media outlets, in an effort to control media information for CIA interests. An example of their work – lessening domestic coverage of the CIA-assisted coups in Iran and Guatemala.
Operation Gladio
A joint CIA/NATO operation to create a paramilitary structure across Europe. The structure operated from the 1940s through the 1980s. It was built using manpower from former Nazi and fascist elements. Its initial design was to act as an anti-Communist resistance force in case of a Soviet invasion. But the right-wing paramilitary forces were frequently linked to violent acts of subversion aimed at controlling and discrediting popular left-wing movements.
COINTELPRO
A FBI counter-intelligence program in the 1950s through the 1970s to expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize perceived threats to the political status quo. These “threats” included antiwar, community, and religious groups. While some of the groups targeted advocated violent means to change America (the Klan and the Weather Underground), COINTELPRO went well outside bounds of acceptability. Here is a quote from the Church Committee that I can’t resist including: “Many of the techniques used would be intolerable in a democratic society even if all of the targets had been involved in violent activity, but COINTELPRO went far beyond that…the Bureau conducted a sophisticated vigilante operation aimed squarely at preventing the exercise of First Amendment rights of speech and association, on the theory that preventing the growth of dangerous groups and the propagation of dangerous ideas would protect the national security and deter violence.”
The Korean War
The U.S. fights a proxy war on the Korean peninsula. Korea is divided following World War II. The Soviets set up a Communist government in the North. The U.S. sets up a Capitalist government in the South. The North, with Soviet backing and approval, invades in 1950. The U.S. enters the war with the U.N. (through unusual circumstances, the Soviet and Chinese votes on the security council are not there to veto the effort). The Soviets participate in the air war, and the Chinese enter the war after the U.S. fails to heed the Chinese warning not to re-invade above the 38th parallel. Over two million Koreans die. A cease-fire was declared in 1953. Eight-hundred and fifty thousand or more South Korean civilians are dead. Over eleven percent of the North Korean population – more than a million people – are dead (civilian figures not immediately at my fingertips). Over one-hundred thousand Chinese and fifty-thousand Americans are dead. The country remains divided near the same border drawn by the Soviets and the U.S. following WWII.
Overthrow of Iran’s Mohammed Mossadegh
The CIA orchestrated the ouster of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953. This ouster was accomplished in order to secure Iranian oil supplies, and out of the fear that Mossadegh was turning toward better relations with the Soviet Union.
Attempted Coup of Indonesia’s Sukarno
The CIA provided support for a military coup aimed at the ouster of Indonesian President Sukarno in 1956. Sukarno survived the coup, but an American pilot was shot down and captured, providing proof of American involvement.
Operation MKULTRA
A CIA research program on mind-control and interrogation in the 1960s and 1970s. This shit is almost too bizarre to believe really. But it happened. Severely unethical treatment of sometimes unsuspecting people with LSD is an example. And then there were intravenous drug cocktails that were sometimes lethal. Justified by the need to control minds and to become the masters of interrogation.
Operation CHAOS
A domestic CIA operation that illegally tracked the anti-war movement in the 1960s and 70s. The operation tracked 13,000 individuals and over 1,000 organizations opposed to the war in Vietnam, and employed such tactics as secret burglaries to collect information.
Assassination of Congo’s Patrice Lumumba
The CIA had planned the quiet assassination of the Congo’s first democratically elected Prime Ministers Patrice Lumumba by the use of poisoned tooth paste on orders from President Eisenhower in 1961. This plan was abandoned by a CIA station chief with a conscience. The anti-colonialist leader’s crime – we believed he was a Communist. Lumumba’s reprieve was short lived. He was ousted in a coup and executed under the care of Belgian forces. The Belgian’s had the decency to formally apologize for their conduct when it was exposed.
Assassination of the Domincan Republic’s Rafael Leónidas Trujillo
The CIA assisted in the assassination of the President of the Dominican Republic, Rafael Leónidas Trujillo, in 1961. They provided the guns and wanted him dead because his government was too reactionary.
Operation Celeste
This operation has been denied by the CIA. And the documents in question have been called fakes by a Swedish diplomat. But I’ll just put forward the facts as I’m able to find them. The reality of what happened here is certainly beyond my full understanding.
Some evidence exists suggesting that the CIA was involved in an assassination of the second Secretary General of the United Nations, Dag Hammarskjold. The evidence, a letter in the archives of South African intelligence agencies, was uncovered by Bishop Desmond Tutu during the truth commission investigations following apartheid. He shared it with the world. The letter suggests that Hammarskjold was becoming problematic to British and U.S. interests, and that he was killed in 1961 by a small-explosive planted in the wheel of his aircraft while on a mission in Africa. I did not spend time trying to debunk the South African intelligence documents. Perhaps they have been thoroughly discredited.
Attempted Assassination of Iraq’s Abdul Karim Qassim
The CIA was involved in an assassination attempt against the Prime Minister of Iraq in 1963 because of the Qassim’s perceived communist tendencies and his assertion of state control of Iraq’s oil.
Coup and Assassination of South Vietnam’s Ngo Dinh Diem
Ngo Dinh Diem was the first President of the Republic of Vietnam. His rule was supported by the United States. When he proved to be a little too gung-ho in his anti-communist pursuits, the United States withdrew support. The U.S. gave assurances that a planned coup d’etat would could proceed unhindered. Diem was overthrown and executed on November 2, 1963. When Kennedy was shot twenty days later, some Vietnamese believed Diem’s ghost was responsible, as Kennedy had approved Diem’s assassination. Diem’s wife was visiting the U.S. when she learned of the coup. She immediately pinned responsibility on the U.S., saying that, “Whoever has the Americans as allies does not need enemies.” She predicted a dark future for the U.S. in Vietnam.
The Vietnam War
The Vietnam War started as a civil war between the Communists and Capitalists. Following the end of French imperial rule, the Communists were established in the North, and the Capitalists were established in the South. The county soon fell into a second proxy war with the Chinese and Soviets supporting the North and the United States supporting the South. U.S. troops are committed in force between 1964 and 1973. Estimating the death toll is an inexact science. A range from 1.5 million to perhaps 6 million Vietnamese killed is a good estimate. As many as 4 million civilians. 58,000 U.S. troops died. Siagon fell in 1975, and the U.S. has now normalized relations with the communist government in Vietnam.
U.S. Military Intervention in the Dominican Republic
Following the CIA assisted Trujillo assassination in 1961, the CIA then orchestrated a coup against democratically elected President Juan Bosch. Bosch was too leftist. In 1965 Francisco Caamaño helped lead an armed resistance against a right-wing military government, in a armed effort to restore a constitutional government to the Dominican Republic. President Lyndon Johnson ordered in U.S. military troops to thwart the effort because the U.S. did not want another left-wing Cuba in the hemisphere.
The Cuban Project
A covert CIA campaign in 1961 and 1962 to destabilize and overthrow the Communist government of Cuba and replace it with a government more friendly to U.S. interests. The plans included assassinations, sabotage, propaganda and the arming and training of paramilitary forces. The plan also included a “false-flag” operation called Operation Northwoods, where false terrorist attacks would be carried out against the U.S. in order to justify a military operation in Cuba. Fortunately this plan was rejected at the highest levels (by Defense Secretary Robert MacNamara or the President – or someone on this level).
Operation Condor
A conspiracy between fascist forces in the countries of cone of South America, which assassinated, executed and imprisoned left-leaning (and other unpopular) leaders, thinkers and writers in the 1970s and 1980s. Documents released eventually confirm U.S. participation in the planning and communication of the oppressive factions. Henny Kissenger is repeatedly sought for questioning by various instruments of international law, but is able to evade ever answering questions on the record. Though his travel plans certainly appear to have been complicated, as one might expect for and international outlaw.
U.S. Intervention Against Chilean President Salvador Allende
The U.S. tried to oust Chilean President Salvador Allende in 1970-71. Allende was a socialist who moved quickly to nationalize Chile’s resources. The known U.S. moves to oust Allende included political manipulation and force. Allende was ultimately ousted in 1973 by a military coup. The U.S. was certainly aware of the coup and did everything in its power to create the conditions allowing the coups success, but direct U.S. involvement is not a settled point. Allende was killed or committed suicide, to be replaced American-ally and dictator Augusto Pinochet.
The Assassination of Omar Torrijos
Torrijos was the military dictator of Panama from 1968 to 1981. He continued on in a role as the leader of the National Guard while his successor Aristides Royo served as a figurehead president. Torrijos’s plane crashed in 1981. Some evidence has emerged to indicate his plane was blown up by the CIA, to squelch a joint Panamanian-Japanese canal in Panama.
The U.S. Invasion of Grenada
In 1983 the U.S. invaded the British Commonwealth of Grenada. A coup in Grenada’s leadership had led from a Marxist government to an ultra-Marxist government. Claiming the need to protect American medical students, the United States invaded over the objections of the British. Over 100 Grenadans and Cubans died, including 45 civilians. Nineteen U.S. service members were killed. A more acceptable government took power and the U.S. withdrew. Grenada continues to operate a medical school.
The Contra War
The United States violated international law by supporting the Contra insurgency against the legitimate government of Nicaragua. The International Court of Justice found the United States responsible for training and equipping a guerilla force, for U.S. acts of aggression, for mining Nicaragua’s harbors, and for an illegal trade embargo. The U.S. was ordered to pay reparations, and the U.N. general assembly voted nearly unanimously to enforce the order. The only three votes against payment of the reparations were the U.S., Israel and El Salvador. Needless to say, the Nicaraguan government targeted by the U.S. was leftist.
The U.S. Invasion of Panama
The U.S. unilaterally invaded Panama in 1989. The stated reasons for the invasion were protection of U.S. citizens, restoration of democracy and human rights, combating drug trafficking, and defense of the Panama Canal treaties. Much of the world found these justifications questionable because the CIA had supported ruling Panamanian military strongman Manuel Noriega for decades. 27,000 U.S. forces and 300 aircraft were used against 3,000 Panamanian defenders. Twenty-three U.S. soldiers were killed and over 300 were wounded. It is estimated that three to four thousand Panamanian civilians were killed. The U.S. invasion was rebuked by the Organization of American States and the United Nations General Assembly. The U.S., Britain and France vetoed a security council resolution condemning the invasion. Manuel Noriega was apprehended and convicted of drug offenses in the U.S.
JCET
The Pentagon’s Joint Combined Exchange Training program allows uses of U.S. Special Operations Forces in foreign countries on training missions, advancing “dubious foreign policy goals” and resulting in “justified criticism for the human rights violations of some of the foreign troops trained.” This has effectively created a foreign policy arm at the Department of Defense which operates as a militant and unofficial diplomacy, at odds with official U.S. policy. It began in the 1990s and continued into this decade. I don’t know if it is still operational.
The Battle of Mogadishu
U.S. forces sent to help in the delivering of food aid began operations to capture or eliminate Somali factional-leader Mohammed Farah Aidid. On July 12, 1993, the U.S. military launched an attack on a safe-house where they thought Aidid supporters were meeting. In reality, the Americans had attacked a meeting of clan elders that were discussing peaceful resolution of an ongoing situation, and the possible replacement of Aidid as the clan leader. Sixteeen missiles later, 50 of the most respected elders in the clan were dead, unifying clan opposition to the U.N./U.S. presence. Operations to interdict Aidid continued. On October 3, 1993, U.S. two U.S. helicopters involved in an operation to seize Aidid supporters were shot down. On October 4, 1993, a ground force was sent in to retrieve the downed soldiers. Eighteen U.S. soldiers were killed. Seventy-nine were wounded. The Somali death toll was estimated at between 500 and 2,000, a mixture of militia and civilians.
The Kosovo War
In 1999, NATO began a unilateral military bombardment against Serbia. The war was precipitated by ethnic divisions and violence in the Yugoslavian/Serb province of Kosovo. Serbian forces were killing and evicting ethnic Albanians from the province. Ethnic Albanians were battling back with “terrorist” attacks by the banner of the CIA assisted Kosovo Liberation Army. NATO justified the attack on humanitarian grounds, accusing the Serbs of ethnic cleansing. Humanitarian grounds can justify an attack under the U.N. Charter, but the U.N. did not authorize use of military force. During the war, NATO planes flew 38,000 combat missions. There were between 500 and 5,700 civilian casualties. One to five thousand Serbian soldiers were killed, compared with only two U.S. deaths. An estimated 10,000 ethnic Albanians were killed by Serb forces after the start of the air campaign. NATO bombers took out bridges, power plants, a television station, and the Chinese embassy during the bombing. Some evidence suggests that the attack on the Chinese embassy was a planned strike. NATO bombers also eliminated hundreds of state-run Serbian factories, but almost no commercially owned businesses were targeted.
The Second Iraq War
The ugliness and illegality of this ongoing war needs no explanation or link for this audience, in my opinion.
I will need to take some time to read through the links provided – thanks for putting them out there for us. Opening discussion questions here – just so I have a focus as to the intent of the diary…
Thanks for helping me understand your focus so that I don’t misinterpret your intent.
I’m not going to presume to speak for Joe, but my takes on these would be:
I am trying to understand how much responsibility is to be attributed to us as citizens. This will be one of those cases where ‘ignorance is no excuse’ may be come the prevailing discussion.
Also…this could be addressed from a theological or philosophical perspective of ‘the sins of the fathers’. Are the actions of my grandparents generation and parents generations my responsibility or is my responsibility to change the actions of my generation and create a direction for the next?
Just trying to understand the intended direction of this discussion.
I think the list is analogous to the “rap sheet” of an individual. Some felonies. Some misdemeanors. Perhaps some civil infractions, that were meant with the best moral intent.
I started with CIA actions because I believe they are the less well-publicized of our “state actions.” And this is only a partial list. The ones I know of. I imagine there are probably some secrets the CIA managed to keep, as well.
I filled in the list with some open aggressive conflicts from my own memory of life on this planet.
As for assigning individual responsibility to us all, on the basis of this “rap sheet,” that is not my undertaking. In some philosophical discussion, I suppose there are good arguments for how each individual in a “democracy” ought to be responsible for the actions or his or her state. I also suppose that there are good arguments for how the individual cannot be accountable for the actions of the state.
But looking at the list, I don’t think you can quibble with the notion that our state is up to some very questionable things. I would not hold our state up as some kind of model for goodness or decency.
Mostly, the list makes me question whether a “democracy” can even function with institutions like secret intelligence agencies and large standing armies. My guess is, after reading all this crap this weekend, is that we do not even begin to understand all the stuff that our government is doing in our name at this very moment. Those things will only be partially understood by some blog-writers (or whatever replaces us) fifty years from now. And I’m just left with a complete disbelief that we would choose to continue to have a secret intelligence industry. I do not believe the justification that it is keeping us safe, and has to keep quiet to do so. Why can’t our State actions all be known in the light of day? Why can’t we have policy that we can all join together and stand behind in the open? I think that would be an admirable thing to work toward.
It would be a less confrontational list and open to more input, imo, if it was open state actions. Those actions where leaders of both parties were involved in the decisions. Culpability can only rest if actions are known. Geez I think I had this discussion a year or more ago with someone else.
Not being an attorney I do not know the laws regarding guilt by association or accessory before or after the fact.
Until this evening – late – when I’ve had a chance to read your links, I would only add that the deeds indicated did not occur in a vacuum. There are many parties to the actions, including other governments and regimes and secret agencies that were a party to each action.
It will be interesting.
As I said, I do not undertake, in this diary, to lay responsibility on any individual. This is a list of “state” actions. The CIA is an agency of our state.
There is no guilt by association in the incidents in this diary. The list is made up of acts. These acts happened. I’m not accusing any individual of a crime, where the concepts of accessory before or after the fact would be implicated. Just saying, “Here are the acts of our country. What do you think about them?”
I do not deny the acts were all taken in some context. Some might look at this list, and use the facts to argue that the U.S. has done a wonderful job in stopping Communism. Others might look at this list, and use the facts to argue that the U.S. has done a wonderful job in promoting free-market Capitalism around the world. Others (myself included) might look at this list, and use the facts to argue that the U.S. is guilty of “state terror” in its pursuit of some kind a global empire. An empire it can’t even admit to its own people. And all of these arguments might be valid. I’m not the judge of these things.
As you said – these can all be argued from differing perspectives.
– What are we trying to accomplish with a list of the evils of the U.S. agencies?
I do not believe that any of us on this site are denying that there have been criminal acts by the U.S. government, in the past and presently.
– What is the expected actions of us as citizens at this point in time? What is the expected direction of this diary?
I can argue it from any direction you choose – from we are evil to how dare you accuse the government.
Isn’t it is entirely a question of focus and intended audience?
I really do not understand the intent of the diary and would like to participate reasonably and in an informed way.
I wrote the diary after reading three other diaries, and hundreds of other comments. In the discussion between Ductape and BooMan and others, a debate broke out about American Exceptionalism. At least that was what I spent a good deal of time reading about. And in your diary, I saw a call for less heated or hateful “rhetoric” and more “fact.” While reading these things, I said to myself — “Self, you really agree with Ductape that America is really acting out somekind of narrative based on ‘manifest destiny,’ don’t you?” And I replied to myself, “Self, yeah, I believe it. Pretty strongly. But SallyCat makes a good point in saying these things could be better supported by facts.” So I spent a few hours laying out a factual basis.
And looking at the facts as they were available to me, I’m fairly comfortable that my earlier beliefs are bourne out. But I wouldn’t preclude others from looking at these same facts and deciding that other arguments/views offer a better explanation.
So I hope this helps you understand my intent. It is just an explanation of exactly what I thought and did. I find the topic very interesting. I think that is why it generated 200 something odd comments. I also think that if we can’t debate these issues here, or talk about them, then there is probably very few places that we can.
I can delete reference to your diary in this, if you’d like. I didn’t mean it as a slight to you. Only to trace the steps of why I ended up writing this list. I think you made an excellent point. That facts are sometimes much better than rhetoric. It inspired this.
I am in agreement that there are actions that the U.S. government has taken that are morally, ethically, and legally wrong. I am in agreement that the items you listed are among some of the key areas that have occurred in U.S. involvement in world affairs. The facts speak for themselves and the world has reason to condemn the actions of the covert operations and illegal actions of this country.
The question I’m still not understanding is the direction of the debate.
I can sit here and wear the guilt of my ancestors that came in 1634 and wronged the Native American people…
I can sit here and wear the guilt of my ancestors that owned slaves in Richmond VA and fought for the South during the Civil War.
I can sit here and wear the guilt of my country for dropping the atom bomb of Japan in 1945.
I can sit here and wear the guilt of my country for Vietnam, Iraq, and so much more.
Or…
I can sit here and try to understand…
I can work to elect accountable candidates…
I can ask when we stopped being civil to each other in order to get our point across…
I can work everyday to understand and listen to my neighbors and co-workers and others trying to share their views…
Or…
I can become an isolationist and stop caring entirely because I do not understand what is expected of me.
It really does make a difference where you want the discussion to go – to me anyway.
I responded to your questions below. I wasn’t hiding out from you, or refusing to answer your questions. I’ve done my best, and I had to go work for a bit.
You’ll find the best answers I can give in response to a comment of yours down farther.
Judging from the title Exceptional Amnesia and the included long list of loathsome events, it seems that this post is intended to bolster the earlier post that yielded some 200+ comments. Tell me if I’m wrong Joe, but is there really any other way to receive this admittedly very interesting list?
I’m not arguing that these are anything other than disturbing acts of an entity determined to exert control, I’m only responding to Sally and stating that it seems to me that there is only one way to utilize this list. (And it certainly isn’t to assist those arguing against exceptionalism.)
Yes: learn from the past so you wont make the same mistake again. (Hopefully, cause i never seem to learn:-))
If only I possessed your economy of language. Well said.
The title comes from my perception that anyone claiming that America is exceptional must have amnesia about the historical record. The title is more “argument” than the “acts” that are listed out.
I would agree with you, that when I read this list, or when I wrote it, that there is little I am able to do but step back and be dumbstruck for a minute. Apparently, our government is willing to kill at will for whatever principle or idea it feels like defending on any given day. And usually, these principles involve money and power and the eradication of people based movements that might get in the way of money and power. But all of the preceding are just my opinions. I fully expect that others might not share my opinion about what these acts show.
I can imagine someone at the Free Republic who still believes in the Boy Scout oath. He or she may look at the list and say, we took down the Commies. And now we’re going to take down the terrorists. God Bless the U.S.A. and the greenback. I mean. I’ve got good friends who would say that.
And I completely think that even those of us on the “left,” which I think encompasses most at this site, may have wildly varying degrees of opinions about what the list means.
But if you see it as I do, that it is hard to look at and stomach from a civilized, democratic country, then I guess you and I are at least in agreement in our opinions about the acts.
I’ve done my best to respond to Sally’s honest questions.
Another form of amnesia is to not know the history of our enemy. That’s just one link. If you want a project, put the two histories side by side. Put as much effort into understanding the KGB as you put into detailing the excesses of the CIA. Then we can draw the best conclusions. You are fond of moral equivalency arguments, while I am not. This should put you to the challenge.
You’d make a great assignment editor. You’re going to need a bigger payroll though.
I was struck, in my reading, by the militancy of the Soviets, the Chinese, and the Cubans. A good example is Che. I don’t think I would have been a very happy Soviet citizen, either.
From the link I gave you, you should see something familiar. The KGB Latin America desk hyped how successful they were at fomenting anti-Americanism in order to justify their budgets.
They placed lies in the press, in this case about Americans kidnapping poor Mexicans to harvest their organs, that were picked up by leftist media outlets and spread around uncritically.
What I want you to realize is that we were engaged in a battle for the hearts and minds of the people, and that the Communists were selling a false product that promised nothing but a freedom from speech a freedom from religion, and a freedom from economic opportunity. They were truly bad guys, selling us the opposite of liberty.
So, keep that in mind. Everytime we screwed up, they milked it for all it was worth. We beat those sons of bitches and liberated the lands under their yoke. Never forget that. Never underestimate how badly it sucked to live in Russia, or North Korea, or Cambodia, or Romania, or Hungary, or Poland, and how awesome it was to listen to 99 luftballoons in the peace and security of your haus.
As I’ve said downstream, I’m not an apologist for the KGB. And I imagine I would have landed in a Gulag in the Soviet.
But I’m also not a blind fan of corporate fascism. And I have some real questions about just how far the U.S. is down the road toward that end.
and I very much doubt you would accuse me of being an apologist for corporate fascism, nor of downplaying the role of our corporate leaders in the excesses of the Cold War.
I aim to educate AND to win elections. An uneasy tension, to be sure.
I advise learning a few tricks from your cats too!
Chris is hear to educate all cats, and to provide their pirate costumes.
so, since we’re in a ongoing conflict with a sociopath (to make an analogy to people as moral actors), it’s okay or admirable to BECOME a sociopath one’s self, as long as one’s sociopathy is LESS objectionable that one’s competitor?!?
Wow, I think I missed that formulation in ethics class back when I was a philosophy major.
Why is this so hard to understand: standards of behavior and a commitment to the RULE OF LAW is ABOUT US, not our “enemies”. What kind of people do we choose to be?
Reflecting monstrous behavior with more monstrous behavior only perpetuates a spiral of destruction.
I will try to answer some of the questions osed above.
First of all, it would be very interesting to divide those actions according to parties in time. how many correspond to Democrats and how many to Republicans? I am almost sure that the great majority of these cases will fall under Republican administrations.
Second let me use another example that I am more familiar with: Argentina trained death squads in Central America in the 80’s. At that time we were still under a nasty dictatorship. How much of these acts can be attributed to Argentine citizens? Keep in mind that we did not know, and even if we knew, we could not do anything or we would have been tortured and then killed.
To your question as to what are we to do, let me begin with something I am very familiar: Pinochet. When Pinochet was about to be released from England, I decided to do something about it. I decided to add the chargess of international terrorism to those that Spain, France, Sitzerland and Belgium were seeking against Pinochet, which were genocide and crimes against humanity. When the DoJ became part of the equation, everything changed. Pinochet was not released until a year and a half later, he was sent to Chile in disgrace and more trials against him began to take place. That was his doome. The message was sent, and dictators began to get scared. Nowadays they will think it more than twice before they will blindly follow the US.
When I acted against Pinochet, I decided to do so not as an Argentine, but as a US citizen. Why? I dont consider it’s people to be evil. I thought it would be good to the american people, and with a new chance, this country could do a world of good.
And yes, we do hold those US officials responsible for all the bad things they have done. And we do want to see them face justice. But things do take time.
What we all have to realize is that this country has done a lot of good things also: Kosovo, Al gore in Indonesia, East Timor. And that list could get bigger. I also guess that I will be writing a diary next week about Pinochet.
It is the information and reasoning that helps me understand. Thank you very much for giving me your insight.
Peace
I guess that my main point is that as Americans, we have so much power, and that we must start using it. Maybe not now, for I believe that there is a time and a place for everything. And when that time comes, we have to do our share.
I tried to answer Sally’s questions myself, down further. But did no better than your response I am sure.
I can honestly say that one of the more informative chapters of history that I read was about the U.S. involvement in Chile with Allende and Pinochet and the CIA assistance with the right-wing purging of the left that happened in the cone of South America. Eye opening.
And it’s still going on. Today for example, it was reported that Pinochet has been acussed of drug trafficking. Contreras, who was responsible of the Embassy Row bombing, said to a judge, that Pinochet had direct knowledge that coke (black coke or Russian coke) was being produced there to be sent to the US and Europe. Oh my…
America’s felonies and misdemeanors…….you are going to have to take Korea off of there for me Joe! Ain’t going there and ain’t buying it. I toured the Korean War Memorial two years ago and I have never seen anything like that in my life and I probably never will. You want to talk about a coalition of the willing…….go read those walls. The South Korean people have dedicated a marble slab wall to every country who came no matter how small their numbers…..every single soldier that they can document that died in that damn war has his/her name there. Every single soldier and they came from all over the globe and I just broke out in goose pimples reliving reading all that in my mind! Seen the pictures of what North Korea left after they were driven out? The very land those people walk on today was blackened charred crap and shit……that was what was left but they made something out of it. Their women fought…..they had their own uniforms, tools, weapons, and damn it if I had been a South Korean woman when those fuckers came to take away my birthday I would have been in one of those uniforms Joe! Written on those walls in that memorial are also words of the Koreans who fought that war and then went to Vietnam to fight for their Vietnam brothers……also written there was the discovery that South Vietnam did not have the same visceral desire to fight the communist powers trying to overtake them. I almost read an apology there for being presumptuous. There is fighting right now between the old people who lived it and the young people who have never had a hungry day in their South Korean lives and who are as idealistic as all youth should be! We should start that way, but in reality Joe I’m with the old people because they lived it Joe and when I was in South Korea, North Korea was starving to death and people were eating the fucking people who died before they did to stay alive. So fuck this supposed Korean War felony or misdemeanor we supposedly committed.
I’d encourage you to read the entire Wiki on the Korean conflict. Not that it will change your mind in any way, because I don’t think it will.
But what is painfully clear is that Korea was a pawn in a much larger game being played by the U.S., the Soviets, and China. A pawn where about four million civilians died. There is a game between ideologies, as best I can see it. There are the leftists (the Commies) and the rightists (the fascists, the Nazis, and sometimes — us).
I served there, as you may recall.
I also recall that you were young and you felt you were not very empathetic and kind of a little bit of a jerk, as most young people tend to be. How you carried yourself in Korea though and who you thought you were and what you thought was “okay” for you to do, say, or be is not speaking for rest of us in American or the rest of us who have served and lived over there for periods of time. My husband’s best friend Mike married a Korean woman…..he serves over there as often as he can because he is with his family there…..lots of soldiers now have their families there and Americans are not hated by everybody as you would prefer for the masses of Americans who don’t know any better to believe! What about the woman who ran the silk shop by our apartment who scraped and saved to send her daughter to MIT here in the U.S. and invited my daughter over every single day to speak english with her so she could improve her skills! What about her Joe?! I know that the War Memorial wasn’t finished when you were there either, it would do you a little good to perhaps do a little research into that and the South Korean take on the war. You also know that the protesting against the United States is a class that is taught at the college in Seoul. The class was meant to teach political expression and involvement but there isn’t anybody to “protest” there really except the United States and now it has grown into something that many people never intended it to be! To show how we are “unexceptional” in South Korea, we don’t even have say so over the gates that lead onto or off of our Posts and Bases…..we have to go be cleared by the South Korean Military Services every single day to get on and off Post and Base. I don’t know who your Katusa was or who his family was but I think it is very narrow minded to make a massive judgment based on one very young person’s viewpoint. You know as well as I do that the Katusa are from South Koreas “elite” families and believe me….South Korea has its own culture….they didn’t borrow mine, and the children of the elite do have that 90210 attitude! How many people who lived that conflict did you talk to? Stop this deliberate overwhelming desire to paint shit either black or white because there is so precious little in life that is! It sounds as if you believe that if the whole Korean peninsula was starving right now that would be a good thing……….instead of just half of it starving right now!
I just wrote a factual bit about the Korean war MT. And my own opinion that it is hard to see the peninsula as anyting but a pawn in a pretty big game.
I’ve written a more personal reply to you downstream.
Where Koreans take pride in defending their nation and their identity and give thanks to those who at times gave them aid during their hour of need. P.S. by the time Japan was done with Korea they didn’t have a tree standing…….they completely deforested the place for their own benefit, and this is why Koreans are so protective over their forests now too and they have them back because they grew them back. These people aren’t pathetic pawns that we set up and knock down and set up and knock down at will. Much as I don’t like to think about it either……it might do everybody some good here to remember that if that crazy fucker Kim Jong ever decides to cross the DMZ, the South Korean Army and what little we have there is nothing more than a speed bump until other forces can arrive. The North Korean Army is enormous….granted, all his shit that he has stored in tunnels along the DMZ is all rusting now and hopefully isn’t worth a shit…….but he has loads of it and he has a nation of starving people who will do whatever he says to do in order to eat and his forces are enormous because that is all he cares about. If he would ever get a wild fucking hair like he just did the other day……our forces there and the South Koreans are nothing more than a speed bump though and my husband has always told me that if that place ever did pop when he was there I would be better off to consider him dead, and then if he made it I could be pleasantly surprised because he would be!
not even this?
See my comment above … fighting monsters is note a blank check to become monsters.
Madman, I really liked that statement about fighting monsters. Thank you.
though it may have been more effective if I knew how to spell “not”.
Preview is my friend.
Well, may all your post fans be dyslexic 🙂
I’ve always found your diaries to be incredible.
and I have had a few liberal Veterans on here a little bit pissed and feeling hurt sometimes at me over how I have “attacked” troops committing atrocities and commanders “not seeing” atrocities done by their own troops. So don’t throw this shit at me because I live it man! Once again that is not the whole Korean War picture. Once again are saying that it would have been best if the whole Korean peninsula were starving right now? You guys aren’t asking for accountability…..you are demanding perfection and that doesn’t exist in any area where life and human beings are concerned. Not Americans…….not anybody!
for perfection during a war. Unless we took civilians out of the land first… had it in a bordered area perhaps? But no.. .that wouldn’t be realistic. Yes, women and children will be killed, raped, maimed, tortured…
it’s fucking war.
I don’t… no, I can no longer say that war provides any measure of justice or peace. Wars just bring about more wars, more loss, more division.
justice and peace do not come in the form of missiles and gun barrels. I can no longer believe that they do anymore.
A person can lay a gun on a table and talk peace all they want but everyone will be thinking of and looking at is the gun. Guns and bikinis are like that…
And we think Peace through War is possible… then Marriage via rape is possible too is it not? Look how much we’ve taken away from our children to purchase this “war”. Our military is not mighty, even though this is so costly. We need new approaches to conflict.
and it was their nation and they fought for it and they fought for it tooth and nail…..they fought for it like you and I can’t even imagine because we haven’t ever been challenged like they were. I told my husband that Joe likens South Korea to a pawn of ours and he laughed his ass off after being deployed there several times. He lives to serve South Korea when he is there……believe me, we don’t tell those people that “we are doing anything”……..they tell us what we can do while we are there!
administration off. I get the feeling from BushCo that they could really give a shit if Kim Jong invaded South Korea……..well, at least until he started getting cocky lately…….they were attempting to pull mucho troops out of the region though before that. Just my opinion but I think it was because South Koreans don’t kiss no BuchCo ass and they don’t play no BushCo games. They kept the Clintons hopping as it was…..having low flying helicopters disturbing the fields and their livestock I don’t think so!
If we had stopped at the parallel I’d be with you, but we didn’t. We invaded the north in turn, and broadened and lengthened an already terrible war.
You can speak for me any time I’m away from the helm, Omir. 🙂
Remember that the next time I’m at the bar and tell everybody you ordered a round of drinks. 🙂
I’d be happy to spring for a round. So long as you’re hanging out to tell some stories.
that it was not I who said that Americans could not be reasoned with, but an overwhelming majority of email I receive from non-westerners. They were taking me to task for what they perceived as attempts to reason with Americans.
Although there were certainly those who made every effort to prove my email from the east right 😉 I am still not convinced.
It has been my privilege over the years to know many Americans of exceptional intelligence, irrepressible charm, and in some cases, both.
Granted, for many reasons, especially in recent years, there are many Americans that it is not possible for me to get to know, Americans who for a variety of reasons would not wish to know me, and perhaps it is they to whom my eastern emailers refer.
The possibility must be considered that due to circumstances and realities of the mainstream American cultural purview, that the only Americans I will be able to get to know are very reasonable. In fairness, it should also be pointed out that they are among that endangered minority who oppose US policies.
Which brings me to the reason of my comment. This article is certainly a feast for the fact-lover, though I believe it may be in many ways, more painful reading for some than anything I could ever write.
The complex web of attitudes, opinions and beliefs that have made the events BoJo lists possible has hardened and strengthened over the years, and therein lies the tragedy, and perhaps also therein lies the perception of my eastern correspondence that Americans are afflicted somehow with a nationwide inability to reason.
I would not define it as an inability, but certainly an effect of a long-term effort to essentially prevent Americans from writing such articles as BoJo has written, or even think of such a thing.
It is often Americans themselves who point out that the educational system has become progressively less effective at doing much educating, I remember a recent thread on another forum where some former teachers recalled their students’ irritation at being told to read Shakespeare and world history, on the grounds that it would be irrelevant to their obtaining a job.
The students have a point. They are, in fact, in school to develop skills that will aid them in becoming docile employees, and take courses that will correspond to the departments of the companies to which the more affluent of them will apply, not to engage in the low-profit practice of learning for its own sake, and surely not to waste time on extrapolating modern-day-useful lessons from the pens of dusty poets or the ruins of empires past.
Their complaints indicate a very well functioning capacity for reason.
Even Rumsfeld himself is clearly able to reason, when asked a few years ago about the slaughter of a family in Afghanistan that had inadvertantly slipped into the western corporate media, his answer was simple: No, he said, it was not a mistake. If they are dead, he pointed out, it is because the US forces wanted them dead.
Invariably, there will be some who will be inspired by BoJo’s research to do further reading on their own, and that further reading may lead them down roads even more painful to travel. So much so that I would advise taking the time for a bit of honest and sincere introspection before setting off on such a journey.
For those who are determined to go there anyway, please remember that your own humanity is neither defined nor diminished by what happened in the past, but by what you yourself do in the present and the future.
You will not gently call my long hours of research and writing boring — 🙂
I’ve been over much of this ground in reading books by Chomsky. But I did this from scratch, so to speak — my Chomsky library was lent out for the weekend. And I will tell you — the reading of each of these linked pieces was an extraordinary education. Quite amazing what the U.S. has been up to for sixty years — and I’m quite certain that this merely scratches the surface.
My apologies if I misstated your positions. It was not intentional.
I do think that it will be extremely painful for some, though, and no need for an apology, while I felt obliged, especially amid all those facts, to add my own little factlet that will in its way, I am sure, be quite disappoointing to some, you are by no means alone.
It was a long article, and the inspiration for the title is mentioned only once.
And since I didn’t do it in my earlier comment, let me thank you in this one, for all the work you put into this. I know that there are some who may wish that you had not done it, or that if you had to do it, that you had not waved it in their face, and it may be some time before they will be able to express their thanks.
What you have done here is the blogquivalent of striding into the middle of a large crowd whose number includes small children of Christian families and announcing in a loud voice that it is their parents who put the presents under the tree while they are asleep.
Ductape,
The reasonableness of Americans is suspect. We are 5% of the world’s population but are responsible for slightly over 25% of its energy consumption. Our government, in our name, has failed to sign and follow the Kyoto Treaty which would perhaps be a good start saving the planet as a place for humans. We are the world’s leading nuclear power that refuses to rule out the first use of nuclear weapons but which demands that other countries do so, or dismantle their programs. How many Americans think they can live in a democracy but give all power to some guy who says he’ll take good care of them? How many Americans think that in aggregate black people commit more crimes than white people?
How many Americans believe that Jesus Christ is coming back in glory, and soon, and that one day all that will be left of them is a little pile of clothes after they were whooshed up into heaven? How many Americans think that the Bible is the inerrant word of God, and at the same time think that God wrote it in the king’s english? How many Americans think that sending money to television preachers will make themselves more wealthy and successful?
How many Americans think that dinosaurs and humans existed on earth at the same time? How many Americans think that scientific knowledge is the same as having an opinion on whether cotton or linen is cooler in the summer?
How many Americans think about their own children and the effect of the latest Republican debt extravanganza will have upon them? How many Americans voted for an alcoholic serial liar and coke freak not just once, but twice and the second time after he had thoroughly demonstrated his incompetence? And how many Americans still think Iraq was behind the Sept. 11 attacks or had a connection to al Qaeda?
I could go on and on with this list that at the very least would cause a reasonable human being to wonder at the rationality of Americans, but it is just too fucking painful.
All that being said…..God Bless You for this
The fact that students are in school to learn how to become a cog in the economy is the predominant reason for the decline of rationality in America.
to be distinguished from inability to reason.
The exceptionalists reason, as did their grandfathers before them, that western European culture, and by extension, western Europeans, are by virtue of their superiority, charged with the task of ruling the world and deciding what other nations and other peoples should and should not do.
Now to you and I, that may seem on its face, absurd, simply because we do not accept that basic premise: that for whatever reason, religious or otherwise, one group of people collectively constitute the boss of earth.
However, if that were true, then all their arguments would fall neatly into place, as is the case of the Rapturists, the Cargo Cultists, etc etc. Just like the recalcitrant students, the exceptionalists are engaging in reason, they are just basing their reasoning on a basic tenet between which and the facts there is a rather wide chasm filled to the brim with differences. 🙂
Oh boy, here we go. You, my friend, have unleashed the almost-put-away mystic in me by seeming to be making an Enlightenment argument with an instrumental view of rationality, of cause and effect, of reason as a process of deducing from a premise even though that premise is inauthentic or nutsy-fagin (a word my kids and I made up…must have been around the time of the movie “Oliver”). On the other hand, reason for me is not a process but an openess to reality. For example, no matter how succinct the argument made in the debate between Sepulveda and de las Casas about the humanity of the “Indians” it was not rational to begin with the assumption that, first of all, there existed real people called Indians, and secondly that they weren’t human beings. This isn’t faulty reasoning, it’s a denial of reality.
Reason isn’t a faculty, it’s an awareness that the source of order in the cosmos lies within the human soul as it exists in a divine-human tension that can never be resolved. Plato wrote tons-o-stuff about this realm. Human beings experience themselves as tending beyond their state of imperfection and finiteness toward the perfection of the divine that moves them. Plato called this Nous or Reason. This can be both personal and I guess historical, but if this “tending” is reduced to either one alone it becomes deformed. Fundamentalists of all stripes destroy this “space” by equating the divine side of this tension with their opinions about themselves and about God. This too is a denial of reality, and in fact a very common one.
Human beings live in a tension between the divine and the material, but neither pole can be understood as distinct data points. Both the divine and the human can only be grasped in their tensional relationship. Reason was the symbol Plato used to illminate this tension. Reason is the “reason” that an individual will question the imperfect reality into which he or she was born. Nous leads to faith, love, and openess. For Plato this realization was a divine tug.
So I guess in this version Americans aren’t very reasonable either, and I’m sure that many readers of this will think the same of me. I’m right, I’m just not coherent enough.
That post is a thing of beauty!
Operations Overcast and Paperclip: this was not intended as a way to excuse Nazi war criminals, but as a way to utilize the scientific expertise of the German nation (one of the leaders in science) and to deny that expertise to the Soviets.
Operation Mockingbird: this operation is extremely problemmatic. But there are at least a couple of positive things to say about it. Reporters are outstanding at collecting intelligence and have natural cover. At a minimum, it is useful to have reporters file dispatches from abroad on what they see as current conditions. They also serve as excellent couriers. Obviously, this opens a host of issues. Media ownership and cooperation with the government is much more of a serious problem.
Operation Gladio: this is the Angleton/Ledeen part of CIA history which represents the single most evil thread in our post-war intelligence history. Nowhere was this more cynical than in Propaganda Due. I have almost nothing good to say about this other than it was a reaction to the initial strength of the communist party in Italy.
COINTELPRO: what can I say? They went way too far. However, our country was beset by massive protests, riots, and violence. We exposed these programs, condemned them, and set up laws to prevent their recurrence. Those laws are being flouted.
Operation MKULTRA: the basic research was warranted. The use of live, unwitting subjects was beyond the pale.
Operation CHAOS: I fear this is being repeated. Finding the right balance between dissent and internal subversion was a trick the unnecessary wars in Vietnam and Iraq bring to the fore.
The CUBAN project (and other anti-left wing activities, including assassinations): this is the classic mob mentality of our corporate leadership. No one steals, or nationalizes American assets. Mess with our stuff and we’ll take you out. Now currently playing out in Venezuela, Bolivia, and the Mexican elections. Finding the right balance between protecting American assets and investments and acting like a mob-boss is not easy.
Operation CONDOR: reprehensible on every level. Still, this operation was not a specifically American one. It was a Latin American operation that almost definitely had signiificant support from Kissinger and others. Other than the protection of American assets, this had no justification whatsoever.
The rest of your list is less related to the CIA than to the Pentagon. So, I’ll leave it be.
The list of CIA accomplishments is mostly classified, of course. Their biggest success was seen in the fact that the Soviet Union collapsed peacefully without creating any widespread death or existential threat to humanity. We can debate that ’til kingdom come.
I certainly felt, when compiling the list, that reasonable Americans might look at each item and say we were just doing what we had to do to fight the Commies. I have a difficult time looking at these acts and giving them that interpretation.
From my reading, it seems that we very much created an existential threat to humanity. I believe maybe more than one or two. The Cuban missile crisis, the culmination of our Cuban project, led to a moment when our very existence hinged on the interpretation of a cable.
I read this weekend about a training program in one of our missile silos that told the personnel there that we were under attack. They had eight minutes to launch. We were eight minutes from planetary death. Thankfully, they discovered the error.
It seems to me that a Soviet ship captain might have averted a nuclear holocaust by refusing orders as well. Though I just can’t recall.
We have not evaded a nuclear disaster. It seems to me, that we have fomented it. Like with our current stance on non-proliferation.
We can debate until kindgom come. And kingdom come might be right around the corner.
BJ- I have studied this history since I was a teenager, before the internet. I am glad you are familiarizing yourself with it and letting the community know about it with useful links. I do write about these things with regularity, and I know that people do not know all the time what I am talking about.
Having said that, we have to make an effort to put things in balance. We need to understand the context within which these things happened, why they happened, what the good intentions were for the people that authorized them were, how they might have had some utility and how they were abused.
There is a reason I continually return to the Church and Pike committees. It’s the same impulse that led you to write this diary. We have to understand our history or we will fall for the same rhetoric again.
So, bravo for writing this. But, also realize that the majority of the literature on this is written by people with at least a far left agenda, and sometimes dates to the Cold War and was written by out and out Soviet propagandists.
It takes a long time to sort out the good from the bad, the truth from propaganda, etc.
I love this stuff, so keep it coming.
I do not undertand a tenth of what you write. And I usually chalk that up to shortcomings in my own education.
There is completely a context to be found in the history of the last sixty years, at least in the condensed version I was able to read. And I can completely see that there would be people who would look at our acts and say — sometimes bad things are done with good intent — and for the betterment of all of us. Etc.
But I will never “like” that way of thinking. I’m not pragmatic about killing. Or about the rule of law being greater than the reasoning of single individuals in the Oval Office, or behind an agency desk.
I completely believe that you are more knowledgeable than I on this topic. And that you would point the clear way through the propaganda.
But even that said, I don’t think I’m ever going to “like” the need for the CIA and a foriegn policy based on bad things.
” But, also realize that the majority of the literature on this is written by people with at least a far left agenda, and sometimes dates to the Cold War and was written by out and out Soviet propagandists.”
Or “worse” ?
Why don’t Right-wingers write more self-critical history, then? That way, you could skip the concerns over the writer’s “agenda” and get right to considering the soundness or the lack of it of his arguments and the accuracy of the facts assembled.
“It takes a long time to sort out the good from the bad, the truth from propaganda, etc.”
That depends on what you call a long time.
You buy the “Global War on Terrorism” scam, I’d guess.
Whatever your views of Bush, I gather from your comments here and elsewhere that you accept Bush and Cheney’s essential argument that we [i.e. Americans] are faced with a global enemy which they (Bush and Cheney) call world-wide terrorists. Please correct me if I have you wrong.
For me, the “Global War on Terrorism (19–?, 20–? — ?) already belongs on Boston Joe’s hall of shame list. “Terrorists” was already a familiar term when Nixon was in office. Ford used it, Carter, Reagan–took it to new heights of demagoguery, Bush didn’t let up, and Clinton never ever openly addressed its validity. He leaned on it when it was useful and ignored it otherwise. As for Little Bush, it’s his very salvation. In his view, his #1 job is “protecting Americans” as he calls it. Thanks, but that’s not my idea of “protection”, or of “security”. The best way Bush and Cheney could contribute to the world’s security is by turning themselves in to the nearest federal law enforcement authorities and making a full confession.
I believe you are probably thinking of Stanislav Petrov.
…or more likely this guy, whose story I didn’t know about, but is linked to from the Petrov wiki article.
Well. Thanks you gods of the Internet. And ejmw.
The cold war was a cold blooded genocide. It was not fought in US or USSR soil. but it left hundreds or thousands (once again, mostly innocent civilians)of deaths across the globe. It was not peacefull at all. It was all about securing markets for both powers.
…but this is what’s troubled me since all the American exceptionalism talk and the justification of our more unsavory military “adventures” in the name of “fighting communism.”
I don’t want to throw accusations and labels around. In fact, I apologize in advance if you feel insulted. That’s not my intent. But I really want you to know where I’m coming from, and what I am hearing.
Claiming that “we were fighting communists” doesn’t justify everything, Booman. And that’s what this sounds like. Well, yeah, that war/invasion/occupation may have been fucked up, but communism, ya know.
This especially makes my skin crawl: COINTELPRO: what can I say? They went way too far. However, our country was beset by massive protests, riots, and violence. We exposed these programs, condemned them, and set up laws to prevent their recurrence. Those laws are being flouted.
Damn, man. That sounds dangerously close to jesse helms excuse-making. Where the hell is all this coming from???? My mother participated in those “massive protests.” I guess she and so many others must have been under the sway of that communist influence, yes? Bayard Rustin, one of the architects of the March on Washington, had to leave one of those “massive protests” in Montgomery because of accusations that he was a gay communist. That’s why the “KGB propaganda” talking point that you, in my view, so carelessly tossed around was so disturbing and shocking to me.
Exhortations about a foreign evil while doing nothing about the evil burning on a cross on your front lawn falls quite short with me. And that’s just for starters.
But of course, if we don’t line up to cheer lead this historical embrace as groundwork for a more muscular foreign policy, then we’re just weak, right?
Because it’s all penis politics. Let’s just dispense with all the niceties. People don’t think Democrats have a big enough dick, and we need something to hang our hat on, right? Who cares if a bunch of people from third world nations were fucked over??? Who cares if a bunch of people from this nation were fucked over??? Communism explained all. Communism excused all.
I am disturbed in the extreme by the way this all sounds.
AP- my parents, white privileged Madison Ave., etc. not only participated in the MLK march, but gave out bedrooms for the Cambodia protestors. My mother, the director of a nursery school, made sure my playmates were from the ‘black’ side of town. She developed the Head Start program for Montclair, New Jersey, and she fought back against the backlash from the Newark riots.
They were fighting on the right side as well as they knew how. They came from the Midwest, they came from Iowa City and Kalamazoo. But they tried to fight on the side of civil rights and peace.
I have never betrayed that legacy, and I have done what I have done in the furtherance of that legacy. I will never dismiss what was done or side on the side of COINTELPRO. I merely provide some balance here for what should be a good conversation.
“I will never dismiss what was done or side on the side of COINTELPRO. I merely provide some balance here for what should be a good conversation.”
No, you minimize it, or, as you prefer to call it, you put it into ‘context’.
Here’s the context:
in complete and flagrant violation of the nation’s laws, the highest officials of government and those who bore responsibility for the enforcement of law became the law’s leading offenders.
The street riots, the protests, these anti-war activists were themselves a reaction to the official lawlessness which you apparently regard as in part justified by the protesters and their leaders.
Had the war, with all its corruption and lawlessness–which spread in all directions, from Washington outward and back again, from Vietnam–had this not existed in the first place, these protesters should never have had to go out into the street .
I tend to sympathize with you comment AP. I have a hard time accpeting BooMan’s defense of our post cold war actions. I don’t agree. And I’d like to think that people on the “left” of things would share your or my view. By the same token, I can’t ascribe BooMan’s defense of our policies to any ill motive. He has his reasons for how such things are justified. And I’d suspect (though it is only a guess) that his reasons are shared by a majority of the country — at least those who are informed about our foreign policy. Which I think leads us back to Ductape’s original thesis.
Joe- In 1986 I would have been for putting Larry Johnson in shackles for his participation in the CIA’s secret war in Central America, and now I am letting him use this forum to push his point of view.
What we need to do is to expand our vision of what America is supposed to be.
I have lived the left wing critique of our intelligence services for my whole adult life. But we can’t be stupid. You find me the people that were pushing for a better world, and I will agree with you. I want an intelligence community that will protect us and do so without pushing for a blindly pro-corporate agenda. But, first, we have to people our cabinents with people that are not CEO’s of major corporate organizations.
Help me build an alternative power source for the White House.
I’ve tried to respond to everything in this diary. I somehow missed this. I don’t doubt you good intentions for America. I’d vote for you. I can’t say I’m all that impressed with your party’s list of candidates though. I’ll vote strategically.
with the Serbs about mass graves and mass murder…….even though the world already had been and they didn’t fucking care what the world had to say to them. I would love it if we lived in a world of all nice people who would just put down the gun for a nice long talk and a cup of tea……but we don’t live in that world. We did want them to stop murdering people and it was going to go on and on if nobody did anything, so for fucking shame on NATO……they did something other than just stand there and let it happen and go on and on while they just wring their hands!
This is a most interesting entry. You see, I didn’t try to sort through all of our acts and only include those that were clearly “bad” (in my humble judgment).
So I learned a whole bunch about Kosovo. It certainly wasn’t black or white. The KLA was an Albanian terrorist group withing the borders of Serbia. Personally, I tend to side with the KLA as I read this. And certainly there was mass killing going on by the Serbs.
You’ve seized on one of my lines from the comments above. “Felonies and misdemeanors.” What you have left out from that line, is “civil infractions” committed with good intent.
I’d call Kosovo a civil infraction. We didn’t get U.N. approval to go to war. And we were somewhat less than genuine in our negotiations leading up to the war, in my opinion. But I think we acted, by and large, on good grounds. Of course, the use of NATO, a defensive treaty organization, to conduct an offensive air-assault where there was no threat to NATO might also be cited as a technical wrong. But again — technical wrong with good intent. I’m sure there are those — Chomsmy comes to mind — who would hold a different view of our intervention there. Perhaps one of our more learned bloggers and critics of U.S. foreign policy will know these answers.
So that was my take on Kosovo.
they are notorious for it at times….and people just die like flies when it happens. For shame NATO put an end to the genocide like they did! The U.N. was just standing there watching it happen!
I actually agree with your position on this. But I do think the situation in Kosovo is a lot more nuanced that I thought, say, last week before I had read the background.
For instance, I think you could make a fair case that what has happened in Chechnya is a lot like the situation in Serbia. But our foreign policy vis a vis Chechnya is — it is the internal affair of Russia. We make diplomatic noises. But would never consider a bombardment.
So we are assholes because we run around involving ourselves in Korea and Kosovo and we are assholes because we don’t involve ourselves with Chechnya. This is just starting to piss me off to no end how the farout left insists that America sucks when it doesn’t save the world and then America sucks when it attempts to save some of the the world that it can but fails to save all the world that nobody could!
it is fucked by the far left, because we aren’t God and have no hope of ever being God but the way out lefties have some weird notion that we are and that we have the ability to grant peace, harmony, and prosperity on other nations and countries when we decide to and if we would just leave other countries alone that that would instantly bring about peace, harmony, and prosperity to the whole world! That’s fucking ludicrous. Sometimes all we can do is our best to stop insanity and when it comes to war zones it isn’t ever pretty and I don’t care who you are in the equation!
are ironic things in the sense that those who get stuck with them are usually amazed at how off the mark the one they’ve been given happen to be.
…and just because I’m amused with the thought of it, if they were to make another spin-off of Bruce Almighty, say Man Eegee Almighty, and I were given God-like powers, I’d definitely put my energies with the “grant peace, harmony, and prosperity” bit. Somehow “I don’t care who you are in the equation” doesn’t come natural, but trust me, I’m under no illusion that my type of perspective is the norm in the U.S. Wait, isn’t that what we were talking about to begin with?
yourself far left, but not deluded about your expectations concerning your nation and military actions? Please shed some light, because I am under the assumption that those responding glowingly about this diary are.
landscape is so skewed that I have no idea where I fall, but my inclination would say, yes, I’m pretty far left. To the point of being a complete pacifist. It’s my nature, you can ask my childhood friends who will get their asses kicked in a barfight while I shake my head and walk out of the room instead of joining in with their mini-wars.
I don’t think any of us are deluded, Tracy. Speaking for me, I’m completely aware that the United States military is being used now and will be used in the future for many policies that I disagree with. So, by speaking against American Exceptionalism, I am doing my part to make sure that the odds of those instances are lessened; I don’t think any of us are happy with the status quo.
I am a BIOTCH because even though they have used my military for policies that I disagree with……I don’t have any plans for them doing that in the future……NOPE, THEY HAVE TO FIGHT ME FOR THAT FROM NOW ON AND THAT ISN’T A MINI BAR FIGHT WAR. We haven’t been talking about bar fights Manny……I don’t do bar fights, but I have never had any great one liners either. One night though one of my best friends angered another girl at the bar. The other girl told my girlfriend that she was in big trouble because she had a black belt. I swear to God my girlfriend gave a stage burp and said, “Yeah, well I have a leather belt!” and there was no fight even on that night.
As I said, you can pick and choose things off this list. And say, “Hey, this is an example of us being a good guy.” But I think it is much harder to look at the entire list — the entire record — and say, “Hey, we are usually the good guys.”
As for Kosovo in particular, I would point you to the Dayton negotiations as an example of how we set up a situation where we were bombing when we didn’t necessarily have to be bombing. We set out conditions at that meeting which seem deliberately unnacceptable to the Serbs. Why don’t we say, at that meeting, the position is that we want peacekeeping forces in Kosovo (not throughout Serbia). I’d say it is because we had a larger agenda. I don’t even know what the agenda was.
And as I said, on balance, I would agree with you. That ultimately, perhaps action in Kosovo was an example of a good use of force. But I’m not nearly as convinced as you are.
Not Dayton — Rambouillet Accords.
We/NATO went there with an unnacceptable position. It was not a negotiation. But an insistence that a bombardment was a fait accompli.
The position was adopted by the U.S. and allies. Full right of troop passage throughout the country (not limited to Kosovo — and immunity from law for NATO forces). Kind of an exceptionalist position. And critics of the bombing suggest, as Arctucus points out above, that with a slightly less stringent position — something resembling flexibility — that there might not have been the need for bombing resulting in 1,000 of deaths. For instance, we could have compromised on troops in Yugoslavia. We could have relented to — God forbid — international law applying to our soldiers. That is why I’d consider it a “civil infraction with good intentions.”
Here is a bit from the article.
“In the end, on 18 March 1999, the Albanian, American and British delegation signed what became known as the Rambouillet Accords while the Serbian and Russian delegations refused. The accords called for NATO administration of Kosovo as an autonomous province within Yugoslavia; a force of 30,000 NATO troops to maintain order in Kosovo; an unhindered right of passage for NATO troops on Yugoslav territory, including Kosovo; and immunity for NATO and its agents to Yugoslav law. The American and British delegations must have known that the new version would never be accepted by the Serbs or the Contact Group. These latter provisions were much the same as had been applied to Bosnia for the SFOR (Stabilisation Force) mission there.”
usually the good guy. I don’t think the majority of America views itself as this consistent “good guy” when looking at this list. I don’t think a time has ever existed where so many Americans know so many truths and bullshit has been challenged so well as we have had since Vietnam and the fall of the Nixon administration.
Well then. I guess we will just have to agree to agree on that point.
My take on the Kosovo war:
A brief history of Kosovo. Part II: 1989-1999
Maybe I could post it over here if there is interest.
That is a pretty nice piece of writing. Very complex topic, well summarized.
The UN did not act because Russia and China have a veto power, which they would have used. Kosovo was a clear example that being the police of the world is really not a bad thing. It all depends on what the goals are. It might be a situation where some in this country were criticizing it, but I believe that the rest of the world was jumping up and down cheering for the US. I know I was. Heck, I even volunteered to go. When Clinton decided to go , he honored WWII’s legacy.
Undoubtedly the Soviets would have refused. Because to assent to such a thing would be to condemn their own interests in Chechnya. Above I’ve pointed out a troubling part in the pre-bombing negotiations that led me to say this may have been a “civil infraction with good intentions.” For those who aren’t familiar with the term civil infraction is, in Michigan, that is a traffic ticket instead of a crime.
Despite repeated requests as to the intent of this diary no direction is forthcoming. It is apparent that the sole purpose is an attack on the actions of the U.S. Government, it’s agencies, AND the citizens without an expected result of the list of “atrocities”. As no direction as to what is to be accomplished with this list of actions, or how to prevent these actions in the future, or what can be done now within this community it is not possible for me, personally, to continue.
Several people have indicated other information as to actions pro and con, and I thank them for their perspective. The perspective of someone willing to share their information, and reasons for doing their actions, makes it helpful to understand their thoughts.
It feels like there is an underlying tension in this diary and comments. It is waiting for a wrongly phrased comment to become the catalyst for another attack on members of this community and U.S. Citizens.
So…excuse me while I take another route to understanding and skip the ambush laying in wait in this one.
I am just stupid pissed, I’m about to go Armando on some ass and start swinging a bat wildly at gentle happy little snowflakes who have lived inside the wire their whole lives as far as dealing with real evil villians up close and personal like other people in other parts of the world have to every single day!
There are ways to communicate and ways to learn and teach. Leading us into the open without direction is a road to disaster…or at least that would be my perspective.
We each write diaries with a specific intent. Sometimes the diaries go that way…sometimes not. Leaving them as open ended to the tension in the community is asking for random attacks.
Shall we go get some coffee and chat? sallyNOSPAM2Cat at Yahoodotcom
What is the random attack in these set of diaries? You mean some of the comments toward Ductape, or myself? Or do you mean that someone is attacking you? I honestly don’t know.
They have yet to occur…and yet the field is open without the few of us posting here making extreme efforts to understand. The tone of the comments is such that there is no place for opposition to the damnation without trial of the U.S. actions in isolation.
So – in return I can go back and select isolated comments of everyone that has posted in this diary – from other diaries. Make a list. And then condemn the writers as I see fit…based on the isolated selections of their writing.
My actions would not differ from your list above. How does this differ from the right-wing echo machine?
Skipping the ambush and asking you what you expected not why you wrote it…
I don’t understand why this diary is seen as achieving some specific end, other than any other diary that spreads information. Am I missing something?
Every diary of this nature is expected to accomplish something…and we all know that when we write them. If it was not expected to garner a response then the previous diaries that generated this one would not have been cited. Each of the diaries cited had a specific intent. BJ listed his acceptance or rejection of each intent – in part or in whole.
Therefore, without any major effort of conclusion, it appears that an intent was implicit in the writing of this diary. I am unclear what that intent was. Again, I can list the good things the U.S. has done, or the bad comments we have written, or accept without question a list of events.
Events do not occur in a vacuum – be it our comments or the items listed in this diary. If we are to have an open discussion of the events we need to know the intent of the writer or even more so the intended audience.
Is the audience me and MT with a visceral response that reflects being tired of the ad hominem attacks?
Is the audience DF and others that appear to always take the position that the U.S. is wrong?
Is the audience those, like yourself, that want an open discussion of the tangled history that is the political reality of this earth?
We all write with an intent. In order to have an open and honest discussion we need to put our intended theories on the table.
I’m responding to two of you comments here. One downstream, and one here. I do so because I’ve reall got to run.
I surely did not intend my diary as an attack on you. It is a continuation of a discussion which got pretty much everyone involved last week. Where I’ve written offense, I am certain that I did not mean any.
Do I have an opinion on this issue? Sure do. I stated it last week. And I’ve stated it again today.
Truly have to go.
It’s a serious question. I’m not asking it to drop a match onto a powder keg of anger, I would really like to know. I also think you presume too much about what people have or have not experienced in their lives. It would do us all some good to divorce ourselves of the personas we’ve created for the other members of this site, especially if we haven’t met them in real life to grasp a deeper picture on who they are or what they have faced in life. With just the written word, we are only characterizations of our personhood. It leaves alot of room to get intentions/nuances wrong.
military action taken by the United States since WWII has been either a felony or a misdemeanor? That is what has me angered. Peace is the goal and the highest priority, but when the other side is running around carving out mass graves with heavy equipment and shooting everybody in the damn head it has kind of been taken off the table for discussion because that side has already basically made up it’s mind. Many people with terrific ideas for peaceful solutions were never heard because somebody shot them in the head and kicked their body into a mass grave. I will not willingly be one of those people ever!
answer my question, but I will answer yours. No. My observation is that there is a mindset in the American psyche that says we have high moral ground for intervening in other sovereign nation’s affairs. I disagree. We are not the world’s police, and we have certainly been acting like one for a very long time as this diary and others point out. The UN, or any other body, has little ability to stop the U.S. from acting out in aggression, Iraq is a prime example. We have our tentacles so far stretched across this world, profiting off anything and everything, I can’t help but think that it’s wrong and we should end the power trip.
I am pissed because every single military action America has ever taken since WWII has been demonized in this diary and many people happily agree. Fine, go live in a war torn hate filled civil war zone for a few years and call me in the morning.
status quo is maintained, your words describing a civil war zone may become a reality along the U.S./Mexico border. Come visit me for a couple of days and I’ll show you what I’m talking about.
What is up on the border, amigo?
for one thing, the brown menace isn’t going to go away, no matter how much the minutemen would like it. So they’re pissed about that. Plus, there are questions starting to arise regarding their finances to fund the Great Wall™ There’s lots of tension, I like to call it the ‘cornered-cat’ scenario. Plus you throw in a few thousand extra military personnel to an already hostile situation and the fireworks won’t be reserved for just the 4th of July. Did I mention people are still dying everyday?
It’s not good, to say the least, but we’re working hard to register new voters and teach the need for engaged citizenship among the Latino community who has historically voted with disgraceful percentages.
I find the movement you are involved with to be a great hope for the future. I’m glad the leader of the minute men looks like a crook. And saddened that so many are dying there. (I don’t know if you got to keep track, but I sent a check to the relief fund you suggested, with props to you). You give me hope. With what you’re doing. Both political. And simply hope as a human being. Onward.
P.S. I can’t find the death tolls for people crossing the Canadian border near the Ambassador Bridge. Is not this problem universal at imaginary lines we draw on the map?
thank you so much for helping out the Border Action groups, it really means alot and they are doing concrete work to make the situation better here.
I just got a notice regarding a fundraising dinner they are having on July 20th with a keynote address by Fernando Garcia, Exec. Director of the Border Network for Human Rights in Texas and New Mexico. I’m glad to see the region working together. It gives me hope too.
Regarding the death tallies at the other imaginary lines, I don’t have an answer. When I, and others, say that we are dealing with a unique situation down here, I’m starting to see why with each headline outlining a new death. Sad and unneeded.
Refusing to see any of the fine qualities and successes in your country, and demanding to skew all truth about your country to paint it as insane and evil is going to inspire who to stand with you?! If all you can do is notice the stain on their tie and miss everything else about them, and then talk about every other time they had a stain on their tie and never noticing how they removed the stain from their tie why would they want to even be around you? Let alone support you? You are so much better than they are! People who operate that way are called shit dealers, they just can’t wait to point out all the flaws. They live for it. This reminds me so much of some of the counseling sessions between my husband (back from Iraq and all freaked out) and his teenage out of control daughter. He is going on and on about his horrible daughter and all the things that she has done and the counselor finally stops him because who could listen to it any longer and says, “Buddy, she is here before me and she has done so much more right than wrong and she is a fine wonderful human being who will make mistakes, but she is a great person who has done a pretty decent job with what she had to work with. If you want her to grow up and be a crack addict or an alcoholic though keep being addicted and feeding on her wrong doings and feeding the addict in yourself!”
as long as you continue to operate on a characterization you have of me, rather than the real me, you will never understand what I am trying to say. If it makes you feel better to lash out in anger and anyone else you claim is so anti-American, then go for it.
What is “America” the idea anyways? I bet you’ll find a different answer for every person interacting here, and therein lies the conundrum. Who’s the decider on the official definition?
Why isn’t it obvious or why don’t you just put it up here so that I get it? Because obviously I’m not getting it. What am I missing here, spell it out, I really do want to understand! NOT KIDDING
is that there is little listening going on, and your anger does nothing to help make it better. You don’t like that some of us have a dark view of our country’s history? Tough shit, we’re still here and our viewpoints are just as valid as yours. Now, moving beyond that, can you possibly conceive of a situation where perhaps my world view is anti- the America you define but isn’t anti- the America I define? Because I think that’s what is happening. As for the rest of your blather about whether or not my type of worldview is inspiring to others or not that is your opinion and not Truth. And guess what? I’m okay with having a different opinion than you and others. Apparently you, SallyCat and others are not. Have fun with your continued tirade across the various threads.
a dark view of anything, but don’t expect to show up here and cast everything in an evil light that is inflated and unfactual and not get called out on it. Tough shit, I’m still here too.
Are you saying that my diary is “unfactual?”
I have no idea why your diary has caused so much controversy, but then I have been avoiding the flamewars and not reading the comments much.
I would not say that your diary was unfactual. I would say that it was one side of the story. Kind of like listening to the prosecutor’s case but not listening to the defense.
On some points, there is not much in the way of a defense. But Operation Paperclip, for example, was probably one the CIA’s greatest successes. Of course, the Soviets loved to point to it because it involved using high ranking Nazi-party affiliated scientists in our nuclear and rocket and aircraft programs. The Soviets, remember, captured East Germany and made full use of German scientists too.
It’s an example of taking the opposing side’s propaganda uncritically. To use another example, the West German intelligence agency was set up by Reinhard Gehlen in coordination with Allen Dulles. That worked out pretty well. So, there are many ways to make carrot juice. Or whatever. Skin a cat. You get my drift.
I would not say that your diary was unfactual. I would say that it was one side of the story. Kind of like listening to the prosecutor’s case but not listening to the defense.
I can accept this. I mean, I think Wikipedia is a pretty open source, so that anti-Communist thinkers have had their whacks at the links I’ve presented. Far from authoratative. But it works for general work. So I think we’ve got some fairly uncontroverted facts, too. And as I said in the diary, if someone wants to make a list of the facts showing American good in the world, or showing justification of individual American actions. Have at it. I welcome such a factual outlay.
But, when you say:
taking the opposing side’s propaganda uncritically
Facts are not propaganda. We can each take these factual acts, and use them for propagandist purposes. Try to explain why they were done (ideologies). Try to justify why they were done (access to markets). Much of the commentary. Rhetoric. And propaganda. At least as much right-wing pro-CIA propaganda being flung about, as left-wing Commie propaganda.
But facts are facts. These things happened. For whatever reason. And that they happened disturbs me. I question the justifications for these actions. Strongly. Now that may be a debate for another diary.
What disturbs you about Operation Paperclip?
Think about it. We beat the Germans to the bomb, while they beat us on rocket technology. They had better tanks than we had. They mastered synthetic fuel. They produced how many brilliant scientists, including Einstein? And so we snapped them up and made sure the Soviets didn’t get them. We could have had them all hung, but I am not going to go back and question their culpability at this point. We did okay at Nuremberg.
On MK/Ultra, we were looking into how the mind works, exploring psychology, neurophysics. A lot of it was basic science. A lot of it was really creepy. Some of it was grossly unethical.
I am not an apologist for the CIA. I think I’ve written enough on these topics not to have to explain myself or my positions.
I am troubled by a lot of what the CIA has done in their history, and that goes right up to what they are doing right now at this moment. But, having said that, I really hate totalitarians. I hate the totalitarian tendencies of my own government, but how much worse did I hate it in the form of Russian export communism?
I know the right-wing used red-baiting a cudgel to beat us down over the duration of the Cold War. I also know that the Communism, as practiced by the Russians and Chinese and Cambodians, and even the Cubans, was a disgrace to humanity. An absolute disgrace. Totally intellectually impoverished, completely lacking in all decency and respect for the individual and personal conscience. I have trouble getting upset that we took communism as a personal affront. It’s how we dealt with it that I have a problem with. It’s the bad decisions that we made, the inexcusable misdirected expenditures. The needless loss of life. The pro-business agenda masking itself as a pro-liberty agenda. All of that.
But, do I blame the CIA for recruiting Nazi scientists so they wouldn’t work for Stalin? Hell no.
I honestly have a widely varying opinion about many entries on this list. Some, I find details that are disturbing. Some, offend me deeply as inconsistent with democracy and the rule of law.
I’d put Paperclip into one of the least offensive categories on its own. What should we have done? If we were interested in the rule of law, and not interested in defeating another ideology at any cost (or, perhaps to be fair to a person of your stance on these issues — defeating the threat of nuclear bombs being developed against us).
You know the answer. If you want to follow the rule of law, the Nazi war criminals should have been tried without regard to whether they would have helped us make missiles better and faster. Out Nuclear industry would have made it eventually — assuming that’s what we needed. Instead, we ignored the rule of law and allowed war criminals a decent life in the suburbs. We absorbed them into our world. Instead of trying them.
It is a legal/ethical/moral issue. And, perhaps balanced against the “urgency” of the arms race, well, we had to bend the rules. But looking at the list, we always bend the rules. The rules do not apply to us. What matters is are interest. Fuck the rules.
We are about ends and not means.
That is my increasing conclusion as I view the world. And, as is perhaps best pointed out in another rec’d diary, I am an idealist — not someone you would want running your country or your intelligence agencies.
we could do a lot worse than you, BJ. But, ultimately, you are right. I would not want you running the intelligence agencies. But I also don’t want John Negroponte running them. Would you like his job?
I haven’t really taken a position in this whole thing other than to support you as not intending to be anti-American or cast blame on all Americans. But I would just advise not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. We’ve done pretty well as a nation. A lot of people are a lot better off because of the sacrifices we have made. Ask a European.
I think this can show how WAR will never bring people together but instead tears them apart.
I’ve never heard of a “good war” where horrible things didn’t happen… and that is why I am more and more anti-war.
This particular “war” based on lies and greed… has done nothing but cause less security while starving our own chldren from education, health care and basic, social needs.
War? What the hell’s it good for?
But… my country seems to think we’re always the good guys in a war. Which is not the case, especially with Iraq. It’s high time we equate war, not with freedom or might, but with savagery and brutality. Not as a last ditch effort or “pre-emptive strike aka war of agression” but as a non-choice.
Sure many will be put out of jobs, but lets give them new jobs. There’s so much work to be done in the US… let them rebuild schools here.
and I guess I’m trying to point out that if we give a pass to the “successful” military campaigns in the U.S.’s past, then we must be willing to face the possibility that perhaps someday down the road, the war in Iraq will be seen as a “success” too. I could never stomach the possibility, but if, say, ten years down the road, Iraq was a flourishing democracy with a legitimate government, birds chirping in the sky, etc, then the American psyche would ignore the atrocities committed and say, “look, it worked”. That’s the gamble that the neocons are taking, and I’d rather not play that game.
Your points on pacifism are well taken with me Manny. I’ve gone some way down that road in the past year. Though I still wouldn’t classify myself as a dyed-in-the-wool pacifist. And of interest, I used to fight like hell as a youngster — though I do regret some of my violence.
sit, my friend, the world has enough people willing to do violence, it is the non-violent pacifist group that could use some nurturing and growth. Each time we’ve flexed our muscles as a group, the progressive/liberal agenda has made the most progress and human rights given a well-needed shot in the arm.
We hold up people like MLK, gandhi, Cesar Chavez, and dare-I-suggest Cindy Sheehan in high esteem around here everyday. Speaking from what I’ve read of the first three, the non-violence they suscribe to has no limitations. I strive for that, I may never reach that level of certitude, but I’m willing to go down the rabbit hole to find out what’s on the other side. I suspect it’s Peace.
You left me speechless manny. From my heart to yours – thank you.
Great teachers Manny. They’ve got a good student in you.
Being anti-war does not equal pacifism. There will always be conflict, at times physical conflict, in life. But to let conflict devolve into wholesale mutilation and slaughter of complete strangers is, imo, evil and completely unnecessary. The problem is not conflict and violence itself, but how we allow our collective rage of to be seduced into perpretation of the absolutely satanic bloodbaths we call “war”. Having said that, I think a good fight, on a personal level, can be a good thing.
If you haven’t — you must watch of read “Fight Club.”
I think Manny’s path is a super one. I’ve been headed down that path — e.g., Gandhi, non-violence, etc. I’ve learned a lot. I think it is truly powerful. I think that inner-peace does have something to do with getting to peace in the world.
But, on a personal level, I’ve got my demons. That’s just a fact. I grew up in a family where to love meant to inflict physical pain. We didn’t hug much. The men. We just fought. Real love. You had to bleed. And that’s still a part of me. After way too many years. Though I haven’t been in a real scrap in forever. So I guess I’m learning, and getting old.
gentle happy little snowflakes
I’m not sure if that was intended as a description of me. I’m assuming so. It is a pretty funny description.
I can’t be mad at you MT. But I’ve noticed a good bit of anger coming from your directing in these various diaries.
These are ideas. Thoughts. Opinions. We might hold them strongly. Or otherwise. I find this topic very interesting. I’m not writing to offend your sensibilities. And I’m perfectly happy for you to have strong opinions to the contrary. Even funny, strong ones that cause you to compare people to snowflakes.
I’m sorry if my toughts diminished my good standing in your eyes. But they are my honest thoughts.
😉 I am getting pissed though about a few things, can’t help it though, we must remain factual, reality based, and we must win elections! At least in my reality damn it
I got called away to work for a bit. Not to ignore your questions. I’ll just copy them from above, and do my best to answer them.
Are we attempting to understand the actions?
There is no we. But, I’m attempting to write out a factual predicate that underlies my belief that the U.S. acts as an empire, quite often outside the rules of international law and morality. From where the debate was off last week, I thought that a good place to move forward.
Are we attempting to justify the actions?
I’m not attempting to justify the actions of the U.S. I disagree with them. As I’ve often stated publically on this website.
Are we attempting to denounce the actions?
I think that the record of the U.S. is worthy of denunciation. That would be my opinion. Yes. I chose to use less rhetoric in this diary. And more fact.
Are we looking at the actions of the as the only path to be taken by repeating them?
I’m not sure what word is missing in the question. My belief is that the U.S. is continuing with the line of actions that is laid out above as we speak. In Iraq. In Venezuela. Etc. I know many of us here are trying very hard to change things. In what ways we can.
Are we that should be working towards common ground of change rehashing the past without an understanding that many are trying to change the wrongs?
If we can’t look at our past, honestly, I think that is a barrier to going forward. I thought that the debate from last week lacked some factual understanding. I wanted to put something forward. And I’m happy I did. I don’t mind looking at what America has done. I’m not happy about it. But I think we as a society have a long way to go toward understanding. I know I didn’t know about a quarter of our acts on this list were news to me, when I started compiling it.
As Booman has laid out in various historical arguments here and other diaries none of the events that you listed occurred in a vacuum. It is naive for any of us to believe that U.S. exceptionalism, or communism, or socialism, or simply despotism occur as isolated items. Those in power always know that science is correct – for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
You have put forth a list of actions. The questions that Booman has put forth is what were the opposition reactions – or were the U.S. items listed reactions to their actions. Lists of crimes does nothing except present a list of facts. There are few, if any of us, on this site that do not know the crimes committed by the U.S. government AND by other governments.
As an attorney would you simply put forth a list of facts or would you also put forth justification, motive, circumstances, and similar information?
The presentation of this list is no better than someone at Redstate listing all the good things that the U.S. has done (to use your analogy). It is nothing more than a list…from one perspective and remains unbalanced in it’s presenation.
The basic question remains unanswered – where do you want this to go? As I indicated to MT we all write these with an intent as to where we want to go. What is your intent?
Kevlar now comes in designer colors…I’m considering ordering some so that I can continue posting at BT!
I’ve tried to be pretty clear about my intent. I understand that words are sometimes only imprefect representations at thought. But I’ll try again.
We were discussing American Exceptionalism last week. It was an interesting debate. There were three diaries I read. The two that outlined the debate, and yours that asked the question (in part — I know this is a gross boiling down of your diary) can’t we have less rhetoric and more fact. I thought that was a great point. Because my own thoughts — supportive of DTF’s position, had been formed by reading books. Chomsky mostly. So — here is where my intent comes in — I set out to compile a list of American foriegn policy actions since WWII. I didn’t cover them all. There are more. Both good and bad and indifferent. But I made a list. That was my intent. So we could all look at a big list of acts, and then say something about them. Have opinions and ideas and debates, etc. As we are.
I have a certain opinion about U.S. acts. I’ve stated it. It was bolstered by my reading this weekend.
BooMan has pointed out that there was a context. You can find the context by reading the links in my diary if you would like. At least a lot of it. This list of acts is not open to only one interpretation. I mean, in my mind it is, but that is just opinion. My belief.
BooMan has suggested, upstream, that I write another list of acts that explains all the U.S. actions. That puts them into a better context. As I told him, I’m not on assignment at this blog. But I’d be happy to read the context and analysis for the last sixty years of these things. I’ve read a lot of it. But I’d be happy to read more.
That is it. That is my intent for this diary. I don’t know how to say it any better. I hope it does not offend your sensibilities. I included your diary, as it was a bit of inspiration to my project. If you want me to take it out, I will.
You are willing to read more information and see another’s list of perspectives on these events. This is open to interpretation when they are willing to post them. Yet the comments posted by Booman over the past several diaries, in support of an alternative position, are roundly dismissed without facts.
So my perception is that this was posted to support a position that the U.S. is wrong at all times and that we as citizens are unreasonable and complicit and that your list of events is sufficient fact for the case presented.
Thanks – I’ll pass…feeling the fringes of the ambush here.
Booman is welcome to bolster his arguments with facts. He does it all the time. He has sprinkled facts throughout this comment section.
I just thought the position that American is not exceptional was a little fact sparse. So I provided some factual basis to bolster my argument. That’s one way to look at it. My own small research didn’t change my mind. It was illuminating. I found a wealth of context. But in the end, I still think my perception on this issue is right. I know it is right for me. And I would argue that those looking at this facts ought to agree with me, but I wouldn’t be deluded enough to think that we all have to agree. I wanted my case to be a bit stronger. I thought facts would help. I got that idea from you. Because before that, I was just blustering on about what I thought about America.
So anyway. I don’t see anyone here to ambush you. People have strongly held beliefs, obviously. But I just don’t see folks laying in wait to attack you — or me for that matter. I hope. (Wait — Who’s that behind the Powells Ad?).
A historical list of events can be obtained anywhere by googling and selectively listing what a writer chooses to display. The list is no more than a series of written sound bites as to dates and places, IMO.
So…your point is that in previous diaries you blustered and in this diary you listed facts. My point is that the opinions that you had in previous diaries should have been specifically applied to each ‘fact’ presented.
you want a list?
Still, I wish there were less antipathy and more discussion. We are so behind in knowing our own history that I find it impossible to fauly Joe for putting out this list. I just want other lists to be included for balance.
You make my point for me Booman. Without a comparable list of why or counterbalance it’s just a frickin’ list.
There is no discussion here and no analysis. Just a laundry list and I’m tired of them. Looks like I’ll head back over to the Orange site for reasonable discussion since so many here are unwilling to answer your requests for discussion or my requests of trying to understand what they are trying to say.
Lurking mode turned on….
you will find less honest discussion in orange than in green.
I’ve seen too much antagonist in the diaries that choose not to listen to alternatives.
The world is not and never will be black and white. Sucks for everyone concerns but that is reality. I come to blogs to find common ground not get smacked in the face by those that choose to use confrontation as their method of communication. I choose to live and operate in a reasoned and rational society. Or attempts at reasoned and rational society.
Those that can not coherently express there ideas without confrontation are really no different than any anarchist that has ever existed. Anarchy is for the incompetent or fools – it accomplishes nothing.
Sally, it’s kinda hard to find common ground when you accuse those who hold different opinions than you of being hateful, trying to ambush you, or not being reasonable.
Just a thought.
Would you like to reconsider the original source of that statement? Just my .02
From my perspective BostonJoe in this diary put together a list of many different ‘adventures’ the US has been involved in. He did a lot of research and reading and put this out there for us to consider. He draws his conclusions from what he read and invites us to do the same and engage in a discussion about what we think about it… which includes adding additional context as Boo has tried to do, or Arcturus, cruz, etc. People then debate that and add more information or opinion or feelings. And so on.
The thing is, not everybody has the same style of communicating, or thinking, nor do they have to. That’s what makes a community a community and not a cult. We talk to each other, disagree with each other, get mad, feel joy, feel pain, feel life. And sometimes life doesn’t go down the way you want it to or makes you the most comfortable. Nothing that BJ has written is hateful. It’s blunt, direct, and his opinion based on the research he has done.
And I see absolutely nothing wrong in it. But, that is just my opinion.
that started this entire thread.
I am not adverse to discussion, when it is a discussion of the whole. This diary, nor any of the others, were a discussion of the whole. So…we can continue to talk about the leg of the elephant and how many things have been stomped on or we can talk about the elephant has a whole.
This place is self-destructing daily with the amount of anti-American rhetoric that is spewed here. It would be more productive for me to read DU – at least they don’t pretend to be reasonable and rational people. What I don’t understand right now is myself – why the hell do I even try. You guys win…BMT is all yours with all the simmering hate that is being stirred to the surface.
End of my participation.
Hate?
Really?
No. You’re wrong. Very, very wrong.
Read Arthur’s diary. America is LOVED in it.
Read the meet up diary I posted. America is LOVED in it.
Read almost every single diary on this site, including a lot of Ductape’s and you’ll see that America is LOVED… even from those of us who are not Americans. America the ideal is loved. America the beacon of hope that the Declaration brought. America of FDR and the Kennedy’s. America that can stand proud of what the government is doing, at home and overseas.
But America, like any other country, except for the fact that it is the most powerful military nation in the world and therefore has a lot of special significance to every single person on this planet, can and HAS gone off the rails. It is dangerous. And people need to discuss that, and can be disgusted by it, without hating America.
Although I’ve heard rhetoric like that before, on FreeRepublic when they talk about the left. Except they too are wrong. The left, or the majority of the left, love America and want to be proud of it again. But you can only do that by calling bullshit when you see it. Closets with skeletons can never be clean.
If you can’t see that, read it, or experience it then I feel sorry for you because it is quite clearly here.
I’d ask you to open your eyes and heart, but you seem to have determined to have them closed when participating here after the last DTF diary you didn’t like a few months ago. And you very publicly walked away from the site. But the site goes on and life goes on and people interact with each other. It’s too bad you have taken such an absolutist stance here and have decided to use such a broad brush against everything written that is critical of US policy and actions… including the motivations and patriotism of the people who wrote them because we always have more to learn in life than we do to teach. Each and every one of us. In fact the best teachers are usually not the ones you would expect. But your choice is your choice, and your opinion is your own as well.
I just happen to find it a very sad, borderline jingoistic and unreasonable one.
Until this series of diaries. The absolutist positions have been taken by many on this site – including the most recent DF diary and this one and many of the comments on the diaries. The absolutist positions came to the diary I wrote in response.
Take a look in the mirror here. The first stones thrown were not mine no matter how much others may choose to attribute them to me. It appears to offend many that some would fight back against the absolution rhetoric of unreasonableness. So be it.
Divisiveness on this site was not of something I started. But until this series of diaries is done I will stand by my position.
I would suggest you read DTF’s diary again. He quite clearly was not talking about all American’s and said so. The title referred to what others around the world who he is in contact with think about America. He was painting a picture, telling a story, asking that Americans go forth and spread more good, own up to the history and the present and help him answer the questions from non-Americans.
That you don’t like his style or approach doesn’t change the basic facts and premise of his diary.
Yours was the first comment in there and it took a very absolutist position. You then called him a Republican troll. It just got worse from there.
BostonJoe is not an enemy. In fact, I’d wager he is doing more to stop the war and show the true love of America than most. But you decided he was attacking you by doing research and forming an opinion and have continuously accused him of trying to ambush you. That is shameful Sally and the mirror casts many reflections.
of we Americans he considers to be appropriate or even worthy to breathe. It was something like miniscule, or was it minute? We want our country back and every poll says so, but he writes shit like that and you all just can’t wait to pile on the ole America is Pile of Shit Bandwagon….and you are right….the mirror casts many reflections and some asshole making his weekly HIT here talking about what a piece of shit America is doesn’t make me feel good about myself of loved because he patted me on my miniscule little head while he dumped all over my countrymen. Sorry, but my self esteem just isn’t that fucking low that I need to buy that bullshit!
That’s extremely offensive and uncalled for.
That was the truth!
It was basically identical to the “if you’re not with me, you’re with the terrorists” crap that’s spewed by the Bush administration. And that’s uncalled for.
If someone you love has a history of screwing up, and all you can say is “Oh, well, it doesn’t matter because I love you,” you’re an enabler. It’s even worse if you insist that your loved one couldn’t possibly ever screw up.
It takes real love to sit down with someone else and say, “Look, you’ve done some bad things, and it’s time to stop doing them. I know you’re better than this.”
that what Sallycat and I are both talking about and upset about is how BMT seems to have evolved into a cult of AntiAmericanism where facts are skewed to support the cult, and the vast majority of Americans are cast in a light that the facts do not support. A lot of people on here just seem to love doing this and eating it up with a spoon like a big sundae and sometimes it really sucks, sometimes people get really hurt by it, and sometimes people ought to be called out on it too.
And I’m seeing a lot of knee-jerk negative reaction to anything certain diarists write, without any careful consideration of what they’re actually saying.
The reason I don’t post a lot is that I prefer to read, and reflect, and think things over. I don’t agree with everything everybody writes. Some writers, frankly, annoy me to the point that I don’t bother reading their diaries–which is my loss, because even if I disagree, it’s important to know that other viewpoints are out there.
Right now, I’m afraid that there are entirely too many people in this country on the so-called left who believe that all we have to do is to elect Democrats, and America will be all hunky-dory and exceptional again. I’m among those who believe that the cancer runs much deeper and that it’s going to be damned painful to excise it. But if I didn’t love this country, I would simply leave it to die instead of picking up a scalpel.
I have witnessed the Ductape charade for weeks now and have just not gone there. I have deliberately avoided it, steered away from it, tried not to look at it. I can’t take it anymore and it isn’t knee jerk. His diary last night was bullshit, the diary before that one was bullshit……just AntiAmerican Bullshit Propaganda that has caused many people to stop participating here, and there isn’t anything knee jerk about it.
where facts are skewed to support the cult
I have to tell you, I’ve been doing my very best to keep my good humor after being called a snowflake, and listening to SallyCat bluster on about how I’m using mere rhetoric.
The list I compiled was absolutely factual. That is the basis for me drawing my conclusions. We might draw different conclusions. We might even quibble about a few facts. But overall, the list I made survived for two days without serious factual challenge. So please get off the shit about people skewing facts. The facts are the facts. There are the things America has done. The rest of what you say. The rest of what I might say. That is rhetoric. Argument. Propaganda. But the record is relatively clear. And I can’t help but think that you and SallyCat just don’t like what the record shows.
Then just how should South Korea have turned out? How should Kosovo have turned out? When people come to kill people Joe the talking is over with….all that is left is if you are going to fight or if you can run fast enough and far enough or if you are going to die. That’s it Joe and that is a reality that takes place every single day on this globe whether I like it or not, and I don’t like it but it is a fact. I can do what I can to stop it from happening but I will never be perfect at that, and sometimes stopping it means fighting the people bringing it otherwise they will not stop bringing it.
Tracy, here is a brief history of South Korea upto 1988.
Fifty-three years, roughly 20 of them Democratic. The question is, when Truman decided to intervene in Korea, did he set us on a course of interventionsism that led to the excesses of the Cold War?
We saved South Korea, they eventually figured out Democracy, and they have prospered immensely, while the North did not. But, we also lost Vietnam at tremendous cost to both us and the Vietnamese.
We also got it in our head that we were responsible for stamping out communism anywhere and everywhere it raised its ugly head. And then we got it in our head to stamp out left-wing populist politics, too.
So, questioning the decision to go into Korea is not to say that the South Koreans didn’t benefit, but to wonder how many people died unnecessarily and how much we intervened where we shouldn’t have, and how much it all led naturally from the Korean War.
and thank you very much for that because for me I would rather have had anything other than Vietnam happen. Thinking that we were something that we aren’t…….not healthy, believing that we are evil incarnate is just as unhealthy though because it is just as untrue. Thinking that the success of the South Koreans was our doing….not really….they did it and we helped. I need the facts though because yes, people died needlessly but people also lived and did they live needlessly and did they survive needlessly. I need all the facts put up and everything looked at clearly!
I do not know who thinks we are evil incarnate. You might find a few hard leftists around these parts that think that, but I think if you scratch them they’ll tell you they love this country, and love it better than any other.
It boils down to, Stalin or Eisenhower? Nikita Khrushchev of Kennedy, Brezhnev or Nixon?
It’s a pretty easy choice, is it not?
We know who the bad guys were. The problem is in thinking that just because they were bad guys that we are above blame. We committed a lot of crimes, many of them unforgiveable. We are still doing it, in large part, because we never admitted we had done them in the past.
My diary wasn’t called “How South Korea should have turned out” MT.
I put every military conflict that came to mind on the list (I actually avoided Gulf War One because I was running out of time and didn’t want to read and understand all the pre-war bullshit that people frequently argue about).
As BooMan, and I, and you would agree, Korea has to be seen in context. It is factual. The division of the peninsula was the beginning of a proxy-war. We helped install a certain government in the South. One that was friendly to capitalism. They helped install a certain government in the North. One that was favorable to Communism.
In an ideal world, I think the Koreans should have been allowed self-determination as one country after the war. Free elections, that were originally promised (if memory serves) and then forgotten.
I guess, my opinion, is that a colonial dispute by two great powers ended up fracturing a people for the last sixty years. And killing about 4 million of them cold.
I’m not even judging it. That’s just how I perceive it. And it fits on the list.
I’m happy you are proud of our work there.
I would be pleased if you could recognize that some people in the world might look at this entire list, including the Korean conflict, and possibly see the U.S. as an empire that is wholly willing to kill for its will.
But the facts about the conflict. And the link I provided, provides a very balanced account of the conflict — I’d suggest that it might even slant pro-U.S. if anything. That’s what I wrote on the list. The rest. Your interpretation. Mine. Those things are rhetoric and opinion.
Things about which reasonable people might disagree. But because we hold a different opinion on the issue, doesn’t mean we have to call each other names. Or get stomping mad at one another. Okay. I’m an American just like you. But I disagree at how to look at our history. And that disagreement allows me to comprehend DTF a little better I suspect.
I’m just not very good at it
Now, THAT was uncalled for. Really, Tracy, enough. A differing opinion is not a lie, and that statement was beneath you.
the opinion that someone insists they must have is lying by omission. Generalizing all Americans as either this or that even though the facts say differently is just flat out lying! It isn’t opinion, it is lying
I see. Then I guess it’s lying to make the generalization that BMTers don’t love America, isn’t it? Because the facts don’t support that.
If the use of overly broad rhetoric in the heat of passion is lying, well, Tracy, you’ve just characterized a lot of good people as liars. Including yourself. I don’t buy it.
We don’t all accept the same set of facts. Disbelief doesn’t make one a liar.
Hate America overblown diary and anybody who calls him out gets the full treatment here……what do you think?
I think that your war against DTF, as with any war, is causing a lot of collateral damage.
Sally, I’m trying so hard to understand.
Do you really believe that looking to the past, whether in our personal lives, our family history, or our country’s accomplishments and failures demonstrates HATRED?
We learn to be the best we can be from celebrating our successes and questioning where we went wrong.
The diaries you are so angry about suggest that mainstream America is great at celebrating, but not too good on the introspective part. It is also in the interests of those in power to celebrate some very dubious actions as successes. Surely examining our past to understand the present is a responsible act.
If family members sit down to discuss finances, and it is suggested that we’ve been spending too much money, I should think that the conversation, however heated, would center on which expenditures were necessary and which frivolous. The whole family may never agree; they may argue, debate, compromise, agree to disagree, and learn something along the way.
I doubt that any good could come from accusing the discussion’s initiator of hating the family simply because he brought the issue up.
But unless we understand the ‘why’ of the family we will never change it. We can discuss the family finances as being a disaster, but if we don’t discuss the emotional reasons attached to excess spending we won’t fix it. We need to understand the intent and work on the core problem, not the manifestations.
We need an integrated / holistic approach to change not just lists of the problems that have occurred. We need to fix the the why not self-flagellate because something happened in the past.
I agree completely that ulimately the “why” is what we must try to understand. I don’t think anyone here would disagree.
Perhaps we are arguing over the steps to that goal.
When Joe and DT bring up our “family troubles”, I don’t think they are so shallow minded that they think merely turning over rocks to expose the maggots is an end unto itself; it’s just the first step. Once everybody sees we have a maggot problem, we can start tracking down the blowflies.
But like the family with a load of debt, nobody will find the underlying causes (which I agree are the real problem) if half the family have their eyes squeezed shut, singing “La, la, la, I can’t hear you,” whenever anyone suggests that foreclosure is right around the corner.
Please don’t misunderstand. I don’t think intentional blindness, deafness and historical amnesia are a trait of anyone on this site, but it IS a problem in a large segment of American society; if we are to have a national discussion about the truely important issue you raise, i.e., the underlying causes of our strengths and weakness, then a significant portion of the population has to wake up.
I don’t think either Joe or Ductape discount your ultimate goal; I just think they are getting there in two small steps, and you are taking one big one.
Yes, it was indeed horrible that Henry Ford sold Stalin the tractors that collectivized my grandparents land and led to the death of my grandmothers entire family from starvation with the permission of the US gov’t who didn’t consider Stalin a problem when he was just dealing with those pesky Ukrainians back in 1933.
Nothing is black and white and America and the Soviets each scratched each others backs when money or power was involved.
William Blum: Does winning World War II and the Cold War mean never having to say you’re sorry?
A Brief History of U.S. Interventions: 1945 to the Present
The American Empire: 1992 to present
Making Heads Roll – the CIA’s assassination record since WWII
American Exceptionalism (& any other Imperial power’s delusions of grandeur, I might add) is easily summed up: ‘I’m bigger, you have something I NEED, & I’m gonna dictate how I’m gonna take it.’ Schoolyard bullyism 101. Apologists of all eras & nations always have an evil boogeyman or two up their sleeve to justify & cover-up their moral short-comings. That an action can be “justified” leads to an unwillingness to consider that other options might have been available & more desirable in the long-run — 1953 Iran is a prime example. They lack the ability to see the inherent contradiction of asserting moral legitmacy in the ‘fight against evil’ while at the same time devaluing the ‘collatoral damage’ with trite phrases like ‘power politcs just ain’t pretty’ or Huce’s “We do it ‘cuz we can.’
Rogue States again:
Another favorite illogical device is to credit Reagan with the downfall of the “Evil Empire,” a collapse the CIA & all our other high-priced intelligence gathering activites spectacularly failed to see coming, but happily smirks at the ‘win.’
Most therapists tell us that guilt is a useless emotion to wallow in, that healing can’t happen without acknowledging & taking responsibility for our past — which in my book means recognizing the dis-ease, and working for fundamental change.
It is our own humanity that is at stake.
I thank you for posting all this information. I’d be a liar if I said I’ve had the time to digest all of what you’ve written, or visit the links.
I’m typing about as fast as I can just to respond. Plus I’ve got tee-ball to go to. Oh the horrors.
At any rate, thanks for the thougts. I’ll get to them this evening.
In a long piece on Kosovo (& touching on East Timor as well), Chomsky asks:
That, to me, is the point of questioning & critiquing the dominant narratives that drone on our ears and are mindlessly repeated. The stories we’re given are usually framed as an either/or choice, whereas digging around in history’s dustbin of facts more often than not reveals unconsiderd, unpursued possibilities & models we would do well to consider in the future.
It doesn’t seem hard to see, in that light, the concerns of the time about violating Int’l law by bombing the Serbs were born out & enabled dub-boy’s violations.
Arcturus,
While I don’t want to get involved in the debate between SallyCat and BostonJoe, I do want to pick up on this of yours.
A twentieth century philospher said that we bear our citizenship within a particular society as a burden to the actualization of our humanity. That’s why the debate about the various activities taken in our name is so important to all of us.
That’s why we get pissed if we think that someone isn’t being fair in their depictions. That’s why when evil is committed in our name and that leads to a more comfortable life for us we spiritually suffer for it.
Amy Goodman was talking about all the lands the US has “occupied” at one time or another. The list was long and most of the countries had been occupied several times.
But what was strange was that we never occupied a country because of human rights issues. And if we do… it’s after a pretty long ass time and lots of dead bodies later….
Here’s how it appears to happen. First we send in the missionaries. Gotta liberate them “savages” from their beliefs and way of life. Then… we send in the Marines. To liberate them from the planet.
I’m reading Where Mountains are NamelessThe nineteen-million-acre Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) contains three to eight billion barrels of crude oil. Conservationists and developers have fought bitterly over the land for the last half-century, an era in which petroleum has virtually come to define Alaska. Struggling to combat the big-money politics that threaten ANWR, the conservation efforts of one couple, Olaus and Mardy Murie, have made them legendary.
The key thing is that our government goes in, pilliages, plunder and leaves a place WORSE off than before. We enslave those who we say we are going to free. We attack diversity while spouting off about freedoms…
It’s hard to realize that your country is the terrorist to so many. .. And that is why I try to change my ways as well as my government.
I do not hate my country. But I sure do hate this government and what this country does to others.
Amy Goodman = Amy! Good, man!
Hey DJ, you should read “Confessions of an Economic Hitman” too… first the missionaries, then the ‘economists’, then the jackals, then the Marines.
Thank you, I will.
occupied zones
and the point of this…
What is our job? To point all this out. Our faith is that human beings only support violence and terror when they have been lied to. And when they learn the truth, as happened in the course of the Vietnam war, they will turn against the government. We have the support of the rest of the world. The US cannot indefinitely ignore the 10 million people who protested around the world on 15 February 2003.
Goodman and Zinn. What a combo.
It’s hard not to like what Howard writes. For me at least.
I got hate mail today from my recent op-ed in the LSJ. I guess not really hate mail. Just a LTE calling my thouts unwarranted, unwanted and harmful to our troops. I guess you are doing something wrong if they don’t complain a little.
Sorry to hear you are getting emails like that.
I’ve been told a few times that I’m putting a bullet into our soldiers head with my protest actions.
See, if it’s “war time” than none of us are free?
I find it absurd that these “troops” come back threatening women and children by calling them names, mock shooting them and spitting at them, “I went there to fight for your rights… you stupid bitch”.
So while they are there “fightin’ for my rights”… they aren’t even able to use the fucking internet without it being censored. And while they are threre “figthin’ for my rights” I’m no longer as free as I as pre- September 11th.
Yup… that makes sense. not.
hieroglyphic stairway
it’s 3:23 in the morning
and I’m awake
because my great great grandchildren
won’t let me sleep
my great great grandchildren
ask me in dreams
what did you do while the planet was plundered?
what did you do when the earth was unraveling?
surely you did something
when the seasons started failing?
as the mammals, reptiles, birds were all dying?
did you fill the streets with protest
when democracy was stolen?
what did you do
once
you
knew?
I’m riding home on the Colma train
I’ve got the voice of the milky way in my dreams
I have teams of scientists
feeding me data daily
and pleading I immediately
turn it into poetry
I want just this consciousness reached
by people in range of secret frequencies
contained in my speech
I am the desirous earth
equidistant to the underworld
and the flesh of the stars
I am everything already lost
the moment the universe turns transparent
and all the light shoots through the cosmos
I use words to instigate silence
I’m a hieroglyphic stairway
in a buried Mayan city
suddenly exposed by a hurricane
a satellite circling earth
finding dinosaur bones
in the Gobi desert
I am telescopes that see back in time
I am the precession of the equinoxes,
the magnetism of the spiraling sea
I’m riding home on the Colma train
with the voice of the milky way in my dreams
I am myths where violets blossom from blood
like dying and rising gods
I’m the boundary of time
soul encountering soul
and tongues of fire
it’s 3:23 in the morning
and I can’t sleep
because my great great grandchildren
ask me in dreams
what did you do while the earth was unraveling?
I want just this consciousness reached
by people in range of secret frequencies
contained in my speech
drew dellinger–©2003 1-866-POETICS
I refuse to pretend that my government always wear the “white” hat. My government does horrible things.
But it’s not about what they do.
It’s about what you and I do that makes this country ours.
Great poem. I do think that most here are trying to do what they can. And that gives me some hope.
I’ve been thinking. Oh Oh. Ever since the last few protests that were very militaristic.
I wish we had a thread for people and loved ones of those who do go out into the streets, the night, the federal buildings and protest this war. I think that would be helpful. Supportive, provide tips. blah blah…
Cause, man, I kid you not – it’s a real headtrip before, during and afterwards. I can’t even look at the computer for a few days afterwards.
We’re at over 100 comments on this thread.
The question seems to be: “Is it good or bad or a mixed bag when the USA conducts military action in other countries?” That’s very simplistic, but it appears to be the bedrock issue.
I’d like to talk about it from another perspective.
Suppose another country, say Belgium, magically developed a superweapon with can render most of our technology useless. (We have to imagine this because there is no real power in the world as militarily superior to the USA as we are to everybody else.)
Suppose Belgium, now blessed with overwhelming strength looked at our country and said, “Their president is a dangerous madman. He had weapons of mass destruction. He has a history of attacking other countries. American citizens are brainwashed with propaganda which has many convinced that they live in a democracy, but it is obvious that corporate interests own their government lock, stock, and barrel. We would be doing the good people of the United States a favour by invading their country, forcing a regime change, and restoring their democratic freedom. Unfortunately, we’ll have to bomb some cities, killing innocent civilians in the process, but with the exception of a few insurgent Bush supporters, the populous will welcome us with flowers and cheering in the streets.”
Personally, I think you’ve summed it up pretty well.
If they are coming to remove this crazy son of a bitch just get out of the way. I have a great idea……everybody come to Alabama because it is really removed from any place that W would be hanging out at, we have an acre on a lake, we’ll start a tent village until they get the stupid asshole and the whole damn bunch of them…..I hope they take Lieberman too! If they’re coming for Bush I’m just getting out of the way!
The problem with war is that all the innocents can’t get out of the way. They are part of the inevitable colateral damage. The Belgian liberators would have to bomb our cities, than fight street by street to clear out pockets of insurgency.
Some of us would fight, some would collaborate. Both would believe that they were standing up for what’s right.
Even some of those who hate the Bush Administration would take up arms against an invader, no matter what the motives, in the name of patriotism and national soverignty. Many more would be outraged that Belgium has the gall, the hubris, the exceptionalistic arrogance, to presume that Belgium has the right to decide what’s best for America.
The Belgians could explain and explain and explain that they are acting to protect the world from nuclear destruction at the hands of a rogue nation, but I doubt that would cut much ice with our citizenry as we count our dead.
a tent city. I can’t speak for the rest of ya! I’m from the West…….things have been pretty iffy there at times, I always expect life to throw something altering at me! What’s a blizzard with 20 foot drifts? Survivable. I have killed my own steak before, it isn’t pretty but it’s doable. I think you are being presumptive about the how I would think of the Belgians, they haven’t even gotten here yet.
I made no assumption of how you personally would react to a Belgian liberation force. I was very careful not to do something so disrespectful. I offered a few possible reactions that some people might feel. The list was by no means exhaustive, nor were any of the examples directed at you. I don’t know what actions I’d take in the event of a Belgian takeover, but I suspect that the more death, suffering, and destruction took place, the less likely I’d be to support it.
. . . if every high school student in the country were required to write an essay starting with your supposition.
I wish our elected representatives would do it !
Having power doesn’t automatically confer wisdom.
Quite the opposit.
Much of the disagreement in the last few days hinges on whether America is “good” or not.
We are only forced to ask the question because we’re the greatest military power in the world. In my scenario, we’d be asking if the good citizens of Belgium are responsible for their government’s actions; how responsible; how guilty should they feel; should they be held to account by history for beleiving government propaganda; should they be accounted reponsible only if they benefit in some way; do they suffer from Belgian Exceptionalism ?
Discuss. Compare and contrast.
I see you possess the political virtue….it’s called transcendence. Great comment.
SusanW that was most amazing and so right on!!!! I have a page of your comments in WordPad! 🙂
Heaven help me, I’d better start using spell check !
Thank you, Janet. I am flattered beyond words. Because I admire you so very much, your good opinion is special to me.
This comment may get missed way down here, but here goes…
If you are interested in this topic and want to read more, try reading William Blum and Chalmers Johnson. They discuss a lot of interesting military and espionage actions taken by the American government. For the economic side of things, give "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" a try.
I don’t think any Americans here should feel insulted by this list because I have no doubt that most of the people here oppose those types of actions. As a Canadian, I think looking back to our own checkered past in the treatment of indigenous people and Chinese and Indian immigrants is a positive thing. It reminds us to always be vigilant to prevent similar incidents. Our school systems seem much more willing to talk about these things and make them mandatory parts of the curriculum. I may be making a leap, but I would say this is what makes Canadians more tolerant of homosexuals, immigrants (I believe a recent poll of people under 25 found that over 90% view immigration as positive) and other minorities.
People shouldn’t fear these lists, they should be shouting them from the rooftops and dragging these skeletons out of the closet. You can debate the greater strategic good these actions may have served, but that’s fine. The DEBATE is the important thing. Never let "support our troops" mean that you can’t criticize the war like so many right-wing blowhards seem to think.
I will not support bullshit though and half truths and misinformation and cherry picked information just because I wish for world peace. I will not delude myself that the United States is able of fixing all problems by just staying out of the way or doing nothing accept “talking” to crazy madmen.
It’s all about understanding our history.
It seems crazy to question some of the stories that we see in the press as pyschological operations until you learn the history of Operation Mockingbird, for example.
BostonJoe’s diary is helpful. He is letting people draw their own conclusions, IMO. I set out what I thought was the good that went with the bad.
I wish my front-page post on this issue had over 100 c0mments, since it is about current events.
I’ve read “Confessions…” within the past year, and it does inform my view. I’ve also seen a good bit of Chalmers Johnson in the movie “Why We Fight.” It also informs my view a good bit. I’ve sited them both in these ongoing discussions in passing.
The thing I love about Canada — absolutely — is how the concept of “racism” tends to recede when I cross the border. This could be completely my own perception. But I sense that there is sometimes and unease between races in the U.S., even in very benign settings. But I don’t sense the same unease across the border. In Toronto, I feel like I’m a welcome citizen of the world, right along side everyone else. Probably just my own prejudices. I don’t know. But that’s what I feel. One of the things I like best about traveling there.
I’m also very happy to put things like this list out, and talk about them. Very good thing, I think.
I find this list terribly enlightening. While I have heard references here and there to some of these things, I never learned as much about it all in 20 years of schooling than I did just reading this short list.
It also puts into context the writings of a friend of my brother’s who died a few years ago. My brother took this friend into his home while he died of AIDS. The man wrote an account of his life in long-hand as he died. No one ever saw the account other than my brother, myself and a couple of his friends.
In the account, he talked about being a Green Beret in the 70’s or 80’s. He talked about being regularly “deployed” to assasinate dignitaries in foreign countries. He recounts one such assasination where he broke into a man’s home and stangled him with piano wire. As he was doing so, he looked across the room and saw the man’s small daughter watching him.
When I first read it, I had trouble believing it. And yet this man had no reason to lie. The more I learn about some of our history – the more I believe his stories. It makes me tremendously sad. But it also steels my determination – we have a LONG way to go to clean up these messes in this country.
I can only imagine how chilling it would be to hear some of the stories by the human beings who were tasked with these duties. I’ve heard John Perkins lecture. His stories don’t make you feel good about the world. Thanks for sharing this tale.
I was talking about this yesterday with the spouse…
KATRINA-CIDE.
So many think that the Gulf States are A-OKAY now. They see no misery, no problem. They aren’t even aware of the land grabbing.
So many dead, drowned, left to die… and already we’ve forgotten as a whole. Yes, many are doing wonderful things, heroic things to help with the Katrina victims… but as a WHOLE, this country is on to other things… Like Angelina Jolie’s baby.
They don’t hate our freedom, they hate our selective memory, our foreign hypocrisy policies.
Amniesia, How could you forget the following
Oddly, I found many of these in my research, but decided just decided not to include them. I’m glad you’ve completed the list.
First – a correction. President Kennedy did NOT approve Diem’s assassination. In fact, there’s a transcript of a fascinating conversation between E. Howard Hunt and Lucien Conein that turned up during the Watergate hearings in which Conein in which they discuss how Bobby Kennedy kept trying to forestall any coup and Lodge, the Ambassador to Vietnam, kept pressing to have a coup. Kennedy lost; Lodge won, and Diem was killed.
And of course, then there was the episode with E. Howard Hunt trying to forge cables to make it appear that President Kennedy had ordered the assassination of Diem. But of course, he wouldn’t have HAD to forge them if there HAD been such cables.
I also commented in Simon’s related post on this topic about the Dag Hammarksjold case. Here is a confession as given to the Church committee by a CIA man named Bud Culligan. The committee asked him to list six executive actions (E.A.’s) he was involved in, since he claimed to have done assassinations for the CIA:
(Source: Culligan’s handwritten letter to the Church committee, released under the JFK Act. I wrote about the Hammaskjold and Lumumba cases in my article “Midnight in the Congo” for Probe magazine.
P.S. Wikipedia is NOT a credible source when government crimes are at stake. I’ve seen good info edited out of articles and bad info edited in. Use for leads to real information, but do not treat it as actual information. It’s at best a tertiary source. Find primary and secondary sources if you really want to know what happened (and primary sources are best!)
I actually thought of you when writing this list, and would obviously defer in all details to your research. I used Wikipedia as a quick general resource, understanding that it is not perfect.
That said, do you think the list gives a good general picture of the acts/types of acts committed by the U.S. government over the past 60 years? I know it was not exhaustive. And that some of the actions would obviously be subjected to differing accounts. But I’m fairly satisfied that the list is, for the most part, not all that controverted. Your opinion?
Oh, definitely. In fact, this is the kind of post I’ve been wanting to put together for some time but just haven’t gotten around to. So I was very pleased to see you had so thoroughly beaten me to the punch. Good summary!
I don’t know enough about a couple of the events to comment. For example, I’m not very up on the history of the Korean War. But I do know one salient point not much known – and that’s that the CIA was floating biological weapons into North Korea in balloons. I know this because an Army guy who was mistakenly drinking with the CIA people on the base found this out, and was enlisted in the CIA instantly as a result. (It was that or they were going to have to kill him!)
And there are some events missing, such as the second, successful coup against Sukarno in 1965, in which there appears to be a nexus of CIA and corporate involvement (I wrote about this in my two-parter on Freeport Sulphur. The first was about the CIA/Freeport role in Cuba and the Castro assassination plots, and the second is about the CIA/Freeport role in Indonesia and the attempted and actual overthrows of Sukarno.) That coup was a part of a horrific bloodbath that took the lives of possibly a million or more Indonesians.
But this is a great list that makes the point that “America the Beautiful” is sometimes – not always, but with enough frequency to be alarming – America the Ugly.
You’ve stepped on my last nerve.
Think and interpret and feel however you damned well want to, about Ductape or anyone else, but hear this: You do not get to speak for me anymore than he does,
And to be dumped into some “anti-armerican” cesspool you two have decided lots of us bootribbers belong in, because we don’t see things as you see them really pisses me off big time.
For people who hate generlizations, you sure as hell are good at hannding them out.